Doctor Who: The Drosten's Curse by A L Kennedy
If, for some unearthly reason, you should follow the world of golf and hear of a bunker that's 'lethal' or 'a killer trap', point the speaker in the direction of a sand pit on the 13th at the Fetch Brothers Golf Spa Hotel. For it really is lethal – something under it will suck you down, handspan by handspan, anaesthetising you and making you incapable of crying out. David Agnew knows this, and uses it as a handy way to get rid of people he doesn't like. Elsewhere at Fetch there is a completely inept character – I needn't specify, as he's inept at everything – who's heartily smitten by Bryony, the hard-done-by receptionist. There is a grandma who it would appear is losing all memory, beyond for her beloved octopuses, two young children who are very wrong indeed, in lots of ways, and there's also a strangely metallic taste about the air in the place. A perfect site for the Fourth Doctor to pop up in, then – until a psychic attack leaves him with little opportunity to put the ageless problems to rights… Full review...
The Unnoticeables by Robert Brockway
Carey is a punk living in New York City, 1977. Sick of watching his friends be abducted and killed, he doesn’t care about the rumours of strange monsters and supernatural happenings – all he wants to do is drink beer and kick ass. In the present day, Kaitlyn is in Hollywood. A stuntwoman, she has a missing best friend, has just escaped an attempt on her life, and an angel is waiting outside her door. The survival of the human race lies in the hands of Carey and Kaitlyn. We are, all of us, well and truly screwed… Full review...
The Just City by Jo Walton
Urged on by her brother Apollo, goddess Pallas Athene founds the Just City of Atlantis – a city based on Plato’s republic. Filling it with an assortments of adults collected from throughout time, as well as ten thousand ten year olds, (one of whom is a disguised Apollo). Whilst the city flourishes, the arrival of Socrates may prove to be a fly in the ointment… Full review...
Dark Run by Mike Brooks
For any sane person Space is not a place you would want to go. Yes, there is the great unknown, planets to visit and the potential to meet alien life, but all that sits between you and the endless void is a few inches of metal – no thank you. To make things even worse, the future of space travel also appears to have pirates, terrorism and petty bureaucracy. I think I will stick to getting my astronaut-based thrills vicariously through the medium of the novel. Full review...
Timebomb by Scott K Andrews
In 2141, Yojana Patel throws herself off a skyscraper. She never hits the ground. In 1640, Dora Predennick discovers a badly burnt woman. When she reaches out to comfort her, she’s flung through time. And on a rainy day in our time, Kaz Cecka sneaks into the ruins of Sweetclover hall in search of a dry spot to sleep. Instead he finds a frightened housemaid from the time of Charles I, and an angry girl from the future. Thrown into a war that spans millennia, the three must harness powers in order to escape deadly villains, and stay one step ahead of a fanatical army… Full review...
Bill, the Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison
Meet Bill. He's a simple farmer – well, he is taking a correspondence course in being a Technical Fertiliser Operator – but fate has something else in store. And so does the mechanised, technological, industrial military, which needs several billion grunts to fight the Chingers, in mankind's first inter-galactic war. Still, at least he gets medals just for signing up. After that it's all downhill, and the likes of Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang can only make that a straight line down. Really, what hope is there? Full review...
Mother of Eden by Chris Beckett
Chris Beckett writes page-turning science fiction with deep theological implications. I almost never read sci-fi, but in 2012 I devoured Dark Eden, admiring it so much that I chose it as Greenbelt Festival's Big Read that year. Anyone approaching this sequel without knowledge of the first book will inevitably be a mite confused, so a synopsis of the first book may come in handy. Six generations ago a pair of astronauts, Angela (Gela) and Tommy, landed on the planet Eden and became matriarch and patriarch of a new race of primitive humans. A young leader, John Redlantern, rose up within the group, determined to free his people from their limited worldview by demythologizing their foundational story. Through events that mirror those in Genesis and Exodus, Beckett presents an intriguing counterpoint to the ways Jews and Christians relate to the biblical narrative. Full review...
Deadeye by William C Dietz
In the world of urban fantasy it seems easy to come up with a great concept and then find yourself with no story to fill it. How about this for an idea? The future America is almost destroyed when a virus wipes out half the population, of those that survive half have remained human, the other half have become mutants. Someone needs to police this new status quo, so detectives are still on the beat, catching killers and kidnappers. Sounds like a great idea, just don’t forget the story. Full review...
The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
In a future in which the sea has flooded the world, Callanish is a gracekeeper – administering shoreside burials and sending the dead to rest in the depths of the ocean. The solitary life of tending watery graves serving as penance for a long-ago mistake. Meanwhile, North is a circus performer – living with a flouting troupe of acrobats, clowns, dancers and trainers, and with only a bear for a friend. An offshore storm leads to a chance meeting between North and Callanish – and a chance to change both of their lives. Full review...
System: With his face in the sun by Jon A Davidson
Wallace Blair, like everyone else, is used to the benefits of a life guided by The System. After all, The System knows best. However he is somewhat dismayed when he wakes to a System message on his Commcuff informing him that his happy marriage is about to be dissolved and that's not his only concern. After being sent to retrieve papers from his grandfather's house, Wallace reflects on how long it's been since he's seen the old man. Wallace decides to drop in on him but what should be a trip to an elderly care facility takes him down an unexpected path. Full review...
Alienated by Melissa Landers
Two years ago, aliens made contact. Now, Cara Sweeney has been chosen to host Aelyx, a L'eihr exchange student. The first exchange student. Cara gets a free ride to any college she chooses out of the deal, some excellent material for her blog, and a chance to be a part of history, helping in her own way to form an alliance between the two races. Full review...
Invaded by Melissa Landers
To save the alliance between Humans and the L'eihr, and save the planet from the deadly algae blooms that threaten to destroy all life, Cara and Aeylx have to persuade the L'eihr that Humans and L'eihr can peacefully co-exist. Full review...
William Shakespeare's The Phantom of Menace by Ian Doescher
Join us, good gentles, for a merry reimagining of `Star Wars Episode 1' as only Shakespeare could have written it. 'Tis a true Shakespearean drama, filled with sword fights, soliloquies and doomed romance…all in glorious iambic pentameter and coupled with gorgeous illustrations. Hold on to your midichlorians: The plays the thing, wherein you'll catch the rise of Anakin! Full review...
The Machine Awakes by Adam Christopher
It is the nature of human beings to make life difficult for themselves. If, as a race, you are fighting a war against a horde of Artificially Intelligent metal spiders, you don’t need the added grief of internal politics. In the world of ‘‘The Spider Wars’’, the political situation has just exploded after a series of high profile assassinations. Where are the bug hunters when you need them? Too busy hunting hired killers instead! Full review...
Harrison Squared by Daryl Gregory
You should never judge a book by its cover, or an author from their back catalogue. Whilst some writers will produce the same sort of adventure over and over again, with the same characters in the same world; others are more like a bag of literal allsorts. A novelist may produce one book that is a satirical and adult; just don’t assume that the next will be the same. In fact, this could be a book from the same publisher, with the same look and feel, but actually be a young adult novel in disguise… Full review...
The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K Le Guin
There probably is an Ursula K le Guin book for everyone. For fans of consummate, ageless fantasy, there are the first few Earthsea books, that I met as a child and still hold in high esteem. For the feminist reader, there are much more recent novels that I would even baulk at putting on a genre shelf, so light are the sci-fi or fantastical trappings. But there are also classics of the former genre, too – hard sci-fi written at one of the past peaks of the form, and deemed timeless, as this current reprint suggests. These are sci-fi works that mean something – that shine a light on then-current thinking, or then-recent history or actions, but that are still designed to appeal to the hard-core genre fan. The example of The Word for World is Forest is one such, with an obvious nod to the Vietnam situation. It's a shame then that for me, at the remove of 2015, it doesn't tick many more boxes, all told. Full review...
Windhaven by George R R Martin and Lisa Tuttle
As a huge fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, I love George RR Martin’s writing style and the vivid world and characters he created, and was interested to see what his other work might be like. Conversely, not being at all familiar with Lisa Tuttle, I was even more intrigued to read this book. Full review...
The Empire of Time by David Wingrove
Otto Behr is a German agent, fighting his Russian counterparts across three millennia of history. With only remnants of the two nations remaining, Otto is forced to travel through time - changing brief moments in order to alter history forever. As the stakes grow ever higher - what will Otto be forced to do in order to end this war? Full review...
Robot Overlords by Mark Stay
In the not too distant future, an evil alien robot army has enslaved humanity (as evil robot armies so often do), fitting each person with a tracking implant that will ensure that they remain confined to their homes for the next seven years. Gigantic sentries roam the streets in search of lawbreakers and mankind is under constant surveillance. Confinement is making everyone stir-crazy and the brave few who try to outsmart their captors are incinerated on sight. The biggest mystery, however, is why the robots are here and what they want with humankind. Will they really leave, as promised, once the seven years are up? After all, robots never lie. Full review...
Ghosts of War by George Mann
In 1920's Manhattan, a lone hero patrols the streets and the skies, using his immense wealth and futuristic technology to keep evil at bay. However, at the start of Ghosts of War, the Ghost is in mourning, following the tragic events that concluded Ghosts of Manhattan, the first book in the series. Thankfully for the Ghost (and for the reader) - Manhattan is under seige, and he has little time to lick his wounds. Mechanical winged beasts roam the skies, an alcoholic ex-lover is back on the scene, and a British spy may have to be dealt with in order to prevent a cold war turning hot... Full review...
This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
Stone-faced Captain Jubilee Chase is the best soldier on Avon, a planet in the midst of a rebellion, where the terraforming won’t take, and the mysterious Fury infects soldiers and turns them into mindless killers. Only Lee is immune, and she doesn’t understand why. Full review...
Impulse by Dave Bara
In space, no one can hear you squirm and this is no bad thing if you happen to be Lt. Peter Cochrane, newly out of the Navy Academy he is put straight on the front line and is prone to as many mistakes as he is heroics. Cochrane has no choice, the son of an Admiral; he is deemed the best choice to seek out an ancient enemy that has destroyed a starship full of Navy Officers. When you are only one of a few Officers left standing, you do what you can; even if this does involve blowing stuff up and falling in love. Full review...
Influx by Daniel Suarez
We are told to never judge a book by its cover and that certainly includes any quotes that should adorn the front. Since his debut novel, all the Daniel Suarez books I have read had a quote suggesting that he was the legitimate heir to Michael Crichton. To compare your work with one of the best techno thriller writers of all time is never going to be easy and time after time, Suarez fell short. That is until Influx, a book that finally puts Suarez in the same illustrious company as Crichton. Full review...
What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading The Classics Of Science Fiction And Fantasy by Jo Walton
Jo Walton has published over ten books, several of which have been award winning. On top of that, she has a voracious appetite for books - both as a well respected writer of original fiction, but as a well respected reviewer too. Not only does she have time to do all that, but she also writes a regular column for Tor.com, on Science Fiction and Fantasy books, and it is these columns that a selection of which are collected here. Full review...
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
Mare is a Red - a race kept in lives of poverty and servitude by the Silvers, a race with wealth and mutant powers that allow them to live lives of luxury. Learning to survive amongst the slum like conditions that the Reds inhabit, Mare is swiftly thrown into the world of the Silvers - one that proves to be more dangerous than she had ever imagined, with treachery, plots and deadly games lurking round every corner. Full review...
Goodhouse by Peyton Marshall
There have been times in history when governments have thought they knew who the criminal underclass was. This did not lead to anything good under the Nazis and the same can be said of the Goodhouse regime. If we knew that certain genetics led to an increased chance of criminality, wouldn’t educating these people when they were young be a good thing? Prevention is better than cure, but I am not sure if fascism is. Full review...
Girl Genius: Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle by Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio
Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle is the third novel in the Girl Genius series, adapted from the award-winning steampunk-style webcomic. Following the dramatic events of the previous two books, this volume sees Agatha returning to her family home in Mechanicsburg in order to claim her place as 'The Heterodyne'. She also needs to restore her war-damaged ancestral castle, which is in poor condition following a devastating attack by “The Other.” Of course, in the world of Girl Genius, nothing is straightforward and Agatha's mission is complicated by several things: the castle is a sadistic sentient being with a fractured personality; Agatha has a copy of her evil mother locked away inside her brain that could reappear at any moment AND a huge pink airship has just appeared in Mechanicsburg heralding the arrival of a fake Heterodyne heiress. Full review...
Interstellar: The Official Movie Novelization by Greg Keyes
The Earth is dying – dust storms are ravaging the world and blight killing off all useful crops, meaning farmers are vital to keep the few people to have survived recent wars fed, even if they need to go further and use less arable lands to do so. Cooper is one such man, despite a history in a completely different career; he lives with the father of his deceased wife and their two children in amongst the corn. But when some mysterious happenings keep occurring in the bedroom that was his wife's as a young girl and is now their daughter's, a most unlikely chain of events leads him to find clues that could revive his past – that in fact of a highly trained astronaut, with the one last potential mission – that of a shortcut to the stars in the trails of prior manned probes to detect new habitable planets for what's left of mankind… Full review...
Ultima by Stephen Baxter
In Proxima, alien hatches were discovered across the galaxy, hatches that when opened caused completely unimaginable events to occur - amongst many strange happenings, one character suddenly had a twin she didn't have previously , and one hatch led to a different earth, where the Roman Empire never died.
It is there that Ultima begins - on a world where the Roman Empire never fell, and the technology and culture is markedly different as a result. Full review...
Empires: Infiltration by Gavin Deas
When is a book, not a book? When it is an experiment of course! Empires: Infiltration is one part of a two book series that explores the same story from differing points of view. I started reading the other half, Empires: Extraction, first, but can now fill in some of the narrative gaps as I start again. This time we view an alien threat by the race known as The Pleasure, through the eyes of Corporal Noel Barnes. By book’s end, will I have an appreciation of this daring literary experiment, or will I conclude that narrative has been the same for hundreds of years for a reason? Full review...
The Blood Red City (Never War 2) by Justin Richards
Unbeknown to most of the world who have their eyes on the unfolding events of World War II, the alien Vril continue their invasion. There are those among the allies who know that the conflict has taken an other-worldly turn. For instance British Intelligence's Guy Pentecross continues to do what he can along with Sarah Diamond who is now SOE trained so can handle herself, thank you very much! While the Vril continue to seep into the consciousness of those they find useful, they seem to have turned their attention to some ancient archaeological artefacts. Will our heroes understand the significance before it's too late? Oh and are you afraid of cats? No? Give it a little while… Full review...
Empires: Extraction by Gavin Deas
I will take my hat off to any author or authors who partake of experimental fiction; trying to do something a little differently to push new ground. However, I will jam that hat right back onto my head if said book forgoes the basic need to entertain in preference of being something 'Meaningful'. Gavin Deas, a combination of authors Gavin Smith and Stephen Deas, have tried to do something different, but does it work? Full review...