"And Put Away Childish Things" by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Our main character, Harry, scratches the dark underbelly of a fairy tale children's book series - one that definitely did not have a furniture based portal. A beautifully twisted and somewhat dark take on back-of-the-wardrobe fantasy worlds.

Harry Bodie has a famous grandmother, who wrote beloved children’s books set in the delightful world of Underhill. What if Underhill is real? What if it has been waiting decades for a promised child to visit? What if it isn’t delightful at all? And what if its denizens have run out of patience and are taking matters into their own hands?

Adrian Tchaikovsky really seems at home in a dark novella, and this doesn’t disappoint. As with the other books in this series, there is dubious morality, selfish desires, and half-hearted ethical choices - in this case it’s in a fantasy-world-gone-bad in a knowing parody of the Narnia books.

“really flicking the noses of their lawyers now Magdo!”

Harry is a nicely drawn mediocre antihero, and Tchaikovsky does a great job in dragging him through the plot with lacklustre motivation powered by the flickering flame of a sense of duty. He is so very human - with unremarkable levels of luck, behaviour, achievement, and inspiration. This is nicely balanced by Seitchman the (dare I say “plucky”?) sidekick, and together they get embroiled with the fairy tale sized villain of Underhill.

One ongoing minor quibble with Tchaikovsky is that he tends to have little unexplained nuggets that aren’t important to the plot, but can feel slightly like smug inside knowledge. For example, not every reader will know who Dee and Crowley are (apparently historical English occultists), nor why mention of Barnard Castle is funny (a political incident in the UK during COVID). And the half-explained context of COVID lockdown is likely to age. But these are minor niggles.

The plot is meticulously constructed, and at the culmination of the story I really enjoyed the callbacks to the compulsive behaviour of some of the fantasy characters that were developed earlier in the narrative.

A very fitting conclusion to the “Terrible Worlds: Destinations” series of novellas.

My rating: ★★★★☆

"Artificial Condition" by Martha Wells

Our favourite neurodivergeant construct is back, and is heading to the mining colony where this run-of-the-mill Security Unit became Murderbot. This is a fitting sequel to All Systems Red, exploring a little more of the back-story of Murderbot. There is also the introduction of ART, as an all-powerful sidekick.

For me, some of the changes introduced in this story diluted the essential Murderbotness that we were introduced to in the first book. Murderbot’s attitude to, and integration with, the humans in the story softens, which is a departure from the extreme awkwardness shown in the first book. Also, the introduction of ART as an all-powerful sidekick is a slightly over-convenient way to get through situations that would otherwise be exceptionally tricky for Murderbot alone - and it does give it a bit of a Deus ex Machina vibe.

Giving Murderbot a companion in ART also makes it a bit more of a buddy story, again softening the isolation of Murderbot that we saw in the first book. But I guess all of these things are necessary in order to provide room for more complex plot and character development to occur, which isn’t a bad thing.

So these two powerful buddies engage set out to uncover some of Murderbot’s back story, and grumpily right some wrongs along the way, deftly covering their tracks lest their true nature be discovered. It’s fun, the plot is fast and snappy, and I did really enjoy Murderbot’s development and the interactions with ART. And I’m looking forward to the rest of the books in the series.

My rating: ★★★★☆

"No One Noticed the Cat" by Anne McCaffrey

A cute little fairy tale featuring a cat, which Anne McCaffrey apparently wrote for her granddaughter. It’s a fairy tale. With a cat. And it’s cute. I’m a sucker for a story with a cat. It has an evil stepmother, and royalty and nobility, and they all get into a bit of trouble, but it works out in the end, and nothing particularly surprising happens. Oh, and it’s very short, so I read it while I was waiting for a delayed flight - and I’m glad that I did. It’s a fairy tale. Did I mention that it has a cat?

My rating: ★★★☆☆

"Guards! Guards!" by Terry Pratchett

An amiable and, at times, quite rich story of average people doing the best that they can. But with dragons. Captain Vimes of the Night Watch leads a very small rag-tag team of men, who do their best to keep out of trouble while pretending to keep the residents of Ankh-Morpork safe during the night.

Into this mix comes Carrot - an earnest new recruit brought up by dwarves - and the summoning of a dragon by someone in the city who would rather have more power for themselves.

The result is a very well constructed and engaging plot, with Pratchett’s trademark irreverent humour, and not an insubstantial set popular culture references. There’s plenty of peril (fire breathing dragons will do that), some extension of Discworld lore, and a few new characters entering the mix. I particularly like the extra depth given to the Patrician, even with the very small part he plays in this story - and the librarian (a firm favourite of mine anyway) shows a surprising command of multi-dimensional travel.

Vimes is world-weary but seems to want to do a good job - and he is one of the more real characters in the story. The rest of the members of the Night Watch are largely interchangeable (I genuinely couldn’t really remember who was who, and it didn’t seem to matter). The introduction of Lady Ramkin is very welcome as one of the old moneyed establishment figures of Ankh-Morpork, albeit in a somewhat clichéd down-to-earth “old money” homey way.

The story is fun, but ultimately doesn’t have much to say (there’s a slightly heavy handed attempt to compare the brutality of dragons towards people to the worse brutality that people show to each other), and the resolution of the dragon-related plot is quite weak. I am, however, quite interested in the ongoing story of the Night Watch in future books, and will welcome any development of the Patrician (although I wonder whether, much like the character of Death in the Discworld books, that less may be more).

Competent but unremarkable.

My rating: ★★★☆☆

"All Systems Red" by Martha Wells

This was brilliant. Half machine and half human (at least, cloned human parts), this particular ‘security unit’ has a chequered past, has hacked its own governor module, and has privately dubbed itself “Murderbot”. Now on contract to a research team assessing a planet, Murderbot has a well defined job to do, but unexpectedly gets attached to the team and goes beyond the job at hand to help them.

It’s a short novella, so there’s not a lot to say that wouldn’t spoil some part or other of it, but I loved the character of Murderbot - the combination of competence and dedication for the job at hand, self knowledge of limitations, and the deep desire to just be left alone to secretly watch as many episodes of the soap opera Sanctuary Moon as possible.

I’m so happy that there are 6 more books…

My rating: ★★★★★

"The Devil You Know" by Gwen Adshead

A powerful book and a difficult one to read. I can’t do better than the blurb for summarising it:

"Dr Gwen Adshead is one of Britain's leading forensic psychologists. She has spent over thirty years providing therapy inside secure hospitals and prisons for violent offenders. Whatever her patient's crime - serial homicide, stalking, arson - she helps them to better know their minds. Case by case, she takes the reader into the treatment room and reveals the complex and vulnerable humans behind these acts of terrible violence. These are stories of cruelty and despair, but also change and hope. The Devil You Know speaks to our shared humanity and makes the case for compassion over condemnation, empathy over fear."

And it does exactly that. There is no attempt to lessen the awfulness of the things that these people have done, nor provide excuses or justifications, or attempt to explain away or diminish any of the crimes. It is easy to cast people as monsters who are guilty of these things, but there is a rich vein of humanity running through these stories that provide an additional perspective.

There is also a lot of background about the criminal justice system, and the role that mental health issues, and mental health support and treatment play in it - including the irony that it is often only in prison that many of these people have access to the mental health support that would have benefited them prior to committing their crime.

The author’s accounts of the interviews and discussions with each offender provide a fascinating insight into the depth of training that a forensic psychologist brings to this work. Each story has glimpses of the author’s adept skills at navigating a narrow pathway that will encourage the offender to talk openly about often troubling and emotional times in their lives, from their childhood to the time of the offence itself. The stories are also personal and candid, as the author recounts times when she has misstepped or made decisions or drawn conclusions that in retrospect could have been better.

The awakening of insight and self-knowledge in people who have committed the most heinous of crimes is movingly told. And this has had an emotional impact on me as I examine my own reactions to these stories. By far the most difficult to read was of a man who had sexually abused his two sons - and the fact that the broad mix of emotions of horror and disgust that I had when reading that story also included some compassion for the perpetrator is difficult for me to process. This will stay with me for a long time.

My rating: ★★★★★

"Eversion" by Alastair Reynolds

I can count on the fingers of one finger the number of nautical themed gothic sci-fi novels that have made me cry at the end. (clue: this one).

Ultimately, this becomes a moving story about friendship and humanity, but it’s wrapped in an intriguing mystery in a nautical setting. The characters are distinct and real; the plot is engaging and well place; the mystery is very satisfying.

I’m not going to say any more. Ideally, read this book blind. Read the blurb if you must, but read other reviews with caution - there’s far too much danger that someone will inadvertently give something away. As it happens, a throw-away remark in a review I read gave me a hint of something I would rather have found out on my own.

My rating: ★★★★★

"We Called Them Giants" by Kieron Gillen

This is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel about disconnection, communication, power, trust, and found family.

Lori has spent a life moving from one foster family to another. Her take-away lesson from all of this is that, ultimately, people will leave you. And then they did. All of them. She wakes up one day to find streets and houses deserted - except for a school friend, Annette. They scavenge and try to survive as best they can, and avoid the gang who call themselves the Dogs.

Then one day, inexplicably, two alien craft land. The intent of their giant occupants, or their reasons for being there, remaining mysterious. Lori, Annette and Beatrice form an uneasy acquaintance with one of the giants. The giant seems benevolent, but his purpose remains unknown, and communication seems impossible, despite effort on both sides.

Then there is the inevitable conflict - which, of course, resolves by the end of the story. But there is much that remains unexplained. What caused the disappearance of a majority of the population? Where did the giants come from, and were they somehow responsible for the disappearance, or have they arrived because of it?

The story appears to be a metaphor for some of the feelings and life experience that Lori has had in the hands of a care system that has hardened her against love and attachment - and it also seems to signal this in quite a heavy-handed way towards the end of the story. But for me this made the story neither one thing nor another: there is too little detail for the story around the appearance of the giants, and I didn’t really feel the emotional connection with Lori.

So while the visuals were gorgeous, the story really wasn’t for me.

Thank you #NetGalley and Image Comics for the free review copy of #WeCalledThemGiants in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★★☆☆

NetGalley Review

"Freeze-Frame Revolution" by Peter Watt

A brilliant concept, masterfully executed. I thoroughly enjoyed this. A summary from the blurb:

"How do you stage a mutiny when you're only awake one day in a million? How do you conspire when your tiny handful of potential allies changes with each job shift? How do you engage an enemy that never sleeps, that sees through your eyes and hears through your ears"

Where the ‘enemy’ in question is Chimp, the resident AI on a ship that is travelling sedately around the galaxy, building interconnected interstellar gates - portals through which the remnants of humanity that they left behind may ultimately emerge. Small subsets, ‘tribes’, of the thirty-thousand strong crew are woken from suspended animation for a short while every few millennia every time there is a problem that the resident AI can’t handle on its own.

An AI that is wired into everything, and everyone, on the ship.

An AI that not everybody completely trusts.

For me there was an excellent balance of character and plot - with the mystery of Chimp’s actions and motivations being perfectly set against the pace of the action, and the intrigue of the brewing unrest.

The story is told from the first person perspective of the main character, Sunday Ahzmundin. This worked really well for me, as we only find out piecemeal what is going on with the rest of the crew - and at times it’s even ambiguous whether Sunday is a reliable narrator.

There is also a sense of unseen things that runs through the story - from the partially explained pseudo-religious behaviours of some of the various ‘tribes’ aboard the ship, to the disturbing things, ‘gremlins’, that sometimes emerge from the interstellar gates once the have been built and activated. The combination of first-person perspective, piecemeal information, and the sense of unseen things, gave the story a slight sense of claustrophobia, which I really enjoyed.

I also loved the writing style - not only were the characters well drawn, and the plot nicely paced, but the writing was lyrical and poetic in places. This is a story of people whose lifetimes have lasted for millennia, and whose mission spans the galaxy - and the writing gives it a sense of wonder and grandeur that that deserves.

So… wonder, grandeur, claustrophobia, and an AI called Chimp. What’s not to like?

My rating: ★★★★★

"Pyramids" by Terry Pratchett

An amiable standalone story set in Discworld. When his father dies, Teppic becomes the unwilling king of a small country steeped in tradition - with one of those traditions being interring their dead in increasingly elaborate and expensive pyramids. Dios is an overbearing high priest, who railroads Teppic into building a pyramid of previously unheard-of massive proportions for the late king. But this is in a world where pyramids really do have mystical power, and there are consequences to building such a large one.

While this is a Discworld novel, it’s rightly marked as a ‘standalone’ novel, as it doesn’t really rely on any of the Discworld lore that’s been established in the previous books.

It is a relatively lightweight plot-driven story, with a likeable cast of central characters: Teppic, who wants to bring modern conveniences to the old kingdom (like plumbing, and comfortable bedding); Dios, who vehemently clings to the traditions that he has overseen for his entire lifetime; and Ptraci, the somewhat predictably feisty love interest. It’s an undemanding story, that ticks along at a good pace, replete with the hallmark witticisms and pleasing turns of phrase that Pratchett excels at.

There’s some fun to be had with the naming, as always: a camel called You Bastard, and a place called Djelibaybi both made me smile every time I read them. And anyone who has seen the UK sitcom “Yes Minister” will recognise some of the power plays between Teppic and Dios.

And that’s it, really. If there was anything profound hiding between the pages, then I missed it.

My rating: ★★★☆☆

"Exodus: The Archimedes Engine" by Peter F. Hamilton

An epic space opera spanning millennia, across multiple star systems and a variety of advanced races, political machinations, and good old-fashioned humans. The skill of the author in building an intricate, inter-connected, believable set of worlds and cultures in which to set this story can’t be overstated. It’s quite an achievement.

The Set Up

The story is set 40,000 years in the future, in an area of space known as the Centauri Cluster. Playing the part of “advanced aliens” are humans that travelled to the Centauri Cluster, 16,000 light years from earth, “early” in the book’s timeline and made massive advances in technology and genetic engineering. They have highly sophisticated technology, and hugely extended lifespans. They are known as “celestials”.

And it’s just as well that they have extended lifespans, because there are no sci-fi tricks to allow anybody to travel or communicate faster than light: no hyperspace, no warp drive, no wormholes, no subspace communication. OK, so there’s one trick: a technology that allows very quick acceleration up to relativistic speeds (and deceleration), but this doesn’t change how relativistic laws still apply - including time dilation, where time passes more slowly for the people travelling than those left behind. And this is used to great effect in the story telling, where decades can pass on the planets while the plot follows some characters that are travelling between star systems.

The celestials originally arrived, as humans, in the Centauri cluster in generation ships - ships that travel at relativistic speeds, but still take millennia to travel between star systems (although it seems like less time to those on board). When they found an abundance of habitable worlds in the Centauri cluster, they sent out a “green worlds” signal to all of the other generation ships that had left earth. These ships then arrived in dribs and drabs over the next millennia, but weren’t especially welcome amongst the advanced (and now heavily populated) worlds of the Centauri cluster.

It is into this context that the latest generation ship arrives - the ‘Diligent’, which had been travelling away from the Centauri cluster when it received the “green worlds” signal, and thus has taken a somewhat circuitous route, to arrive late at the party.

And thus we have everything we need for an epic story of enormous scale. A downtrodden human population, into which new arrivals are injected. Plenty of opportunity for exposition, as the new arrivals have things explained to them about everything from technology, to politics, to celestial history. There are power structures amongst the celestials, with traditions and relationships that have spanned millennia, and are focused on retaining stability. There are secretive strategists, that have extensive information networks amongst their own, and their rivals, populations, and play the Great Game - a long game of strategy and political positioning.

And there is a rogue planet that is destined to enter one of the central star systems of the Centauri cluster, for reasons that nobody fully understands. And it is around consequences of the arrival of this planet that the main plot of the story revolves.

But Is It Good?

This book is… long. Obviously, I knew that when I started reading it. And it has to be reasonably long, given the scale and scope of the world building and the extensive cast of characters. And the length isn’t gratuitous at the paragraph level - there are no rambling descriptive passages that you can skip over. It’s wall-to-wall plot. However, the author does use plot to establish character and back-story, often telling entire sub-stories to flesh out the background of a character, technology, or organisation. The fine details of these sub-stories aren’t always important - but they might add flavour or depth to a particular character or broader sequence of events.

So to really enjoy this book, you need to be engaged and interested enough to want to immerse yourself in the sub-stories, and for those to be satisfying in themselves. This is space opera in its “soap opera” sense - where you want to hear more stories of the characters, places and organisations for their own sake, and where the advancement of the overall plot can sometimes take second place. And this is where I had a problem. I’m going to compare this to Dune and Lord of the Rings, and not in a good way. Dune, because many of the characters aren’t particularly likeable, and I’m not particularly interested in political manoeuvring and power struggles; and Lord of the Rings, because many of the side quests don’t advance the plot as much as you might hope, and if you don’t care about the culture of dwarves in Middle-Earth (for example), you’re going to find it frustrating.

But Dune and Lord of the Rings are well liked, so perhaps it’s just me.

As I said at the beginning, there is no doubting the achievement of intricate world building that this book represents. If I was rating for that alone, it would get a solid 5 stars. But my personal enjoyment was hampered by my disinterest in the themes around politics and power struggles.

This is the first part of a duology. Will I read the second part when it’s released? I genuinely don’t know.

Thank you #NetGalley and Pan MacMillan Tor for the free review copy of #ExodusTheArchimedesEngine in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own

My rating: ★★★★☆

NetGalley Review

“Out of the Drowning Deep” by A.C. Wise

This is crammed with intricate, detailed and intriguing world building, which I absolutely loved. It is set in a universe where gods are revealed, angels are manifest, and prayers are a genuine and means of communication and compulsion. Meanwhile, Scribe IV, an ancient steam-punk automaton, has developed a depth of feeling and emotion beyond his original design intent. He is custodian of the Bastion, a once important but now crumbling relic, where there has now been a murder. Scribe IV calls for the help of Quin, an investigator who has troubles of his own, and a chequered and traumatic past with gods and angels.

The murder mystery is the thread that binds the plot together and gives it momentum, but isn’t really the core of the story (if you’re looking for a meaty murder mystery in a sci-fi setting, then this isn’t that book). Rather, the murder itself is just a vehicle to tell a much wider, much more interesting story. And there is so much more story to tell: Quin and his sister Lena have a dark memory from their childhood; the fearsome and powerful Sisters of the Drowning Deep have their own agenda relating to the Bastion and their sleeping god; Quin has a troubled and dysfunctional relationship with an angel, and is struggling with addiction; Scribe IV is struggling with identity and regret; and Angel is grappling with duty, honour and friendship.

The depth and complexity of the universe that the author has created is astonishing, and incredibly satisfying. My main complaint is that I wish it had been a full novel. There is so much crammed into this novella that there are too many things that I would loved to have seen given a more detailed treatment. But “I wish there was more of this!” is more of a frustration than a criticism.

Thank you #NetGalley and Titan Books for the free review copy of #OutoftheDrowningDeep in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★★★☆

NetGalley review

“Key Lime Sky” by Al Hess

An intriguing and engaging cosy/mystery/thriller tale of alien invasion in small town America. Denver Bryant witnesses a UFO explode directly over the tiny town of Muddy Gap, Wyoming, but has trouble finding anyone else who saw anything, or who will take it seriously. Then people start acting strangely, and disappearing, and the weirdness gets gradually worse and more extensive. It’s a race against time for Denver to work out what’s going on and save the town… or perhaps the world.

This was a lot of fun, with a cast of likeable characters, and well paced plot. Denver is autistic and non-binary, and doesn’t always feel accepted in the small town of Muddy Gap, and this makes for a very satisfying “underdog makes good” story as Denver starts to unravel the mystery of what’s going on. There’s a small cast of supporting characters, and a bit of romance, as a “found family” starts to form amongst some of the survivors - and this all contributes to the cosy feel.

The depiction of Denver was rich, and emotionally drawn. I felt a real connection to Denver, and laughed and cried (actually cried in chapter 17) with the personal journey of friends, family, acceptance and identity. The autism seemed genuinely and sensitively depicted (although I’m no expert), and Denver’s struggles with it were well integrated into the plot and added to the depth of the character portrayal and the complexity of friendships and interactions in the small community.

The author didn’t deal with gender identity with quite the same subtlety, though, and there were a few jarring moments where some of the characters had conversations about gender issues that seemed entirely unrelated to the plot or any of the relationships between the characters themselves. There were some important and valid points being discussed (like cisphobia not being a thing), but it just felt like the author was trying to crowbar these issues into the narrative, and, for me, it came across a bit preachy. This is a minor quibble, though.

The relationship between Denver and Ezra was lovely, and felt very real - two people really seeing each other. And there was even a bit of moderately graphic smut, for those who like that kind of thing.

Overall, a very solid story told with emotion, humour, and some genuine excitement and jeopardy, somehow also dealing with autism and gender identity, all in the context of a very imaginative alien invasion storyline.

4.5 stars, rounded up.

Thank you #NetGalley and Angry Robot for the free review copy of #KeyLimeSky in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★★★★

NetGalley Review

“Wyrd Sisters” by Terry Pratchett

The witches are in good form in this fun-packed caper. They’re doing their best not to meddle, as the king of Lancre is deposed by a power hungry duke, and the witches are left holding the baby. Literally.

The mysterious baby that the witches find themselves with gets left in the care of the kindly leader of a travelling band of actors, and their fates are intertwined with the duke and the kingdom of Lancre, ably assisted (not meddling, honest!) by the witches. The story is littered with Shakespeare references - most strongly Macbeth, with the three witches, and the duke obsessively cleaning the blood from his hand - to little snippets and references to other plays, as the playwright in the band of actors crafts subtly familiar lines into his plays.

There are also nice little touches of satire creeping in, as the duke realises the power of language to “reinterpret” history, and attempts to use the mass media of the time (travelling theatre) as a form of propaganda. The book was written in 1988, but I suspect if it had been written after 2020, the phrase “fake news” might even have appeared. The satire, however minimal, is done with a deft hand and is full of humour.

I was smiling and chucking the whole way through this book. And while the overall story arc was largely predictable from the beginning, the journey was very enjoyable. The characters were all solid, and it’s lovely to see the three witches having their own distinct characters, as more of the witch lore is established. I’m looking forward to enjoying in the later books in the witches sub-series.

My rating: ★★★★☆

“Recursion” by Blake Crouch

A solid, fast-paced thriller, with a mind-bending plot where people find themselves having lifetimes of memory of a life they didn’t live. The mechanism behind these “false memories” has far-reaching, global, existential consequences. Our two main characters, Barry and Helena, find themselves in the position of being the only people who have any chance of stopping the gathering chaos - but hope seems slim. To say much else would be to give away more than is in the blurb - which I don’t want to do.

The entire story - including the main jeopardy, and some delicate nuances of what our heroes need to do to save the day - has a foundation on a characteristic of the main plot device that I found very difficult to believe, and was never properly explained. There’s even a bit of “lampshade hanging” that goes on when one character incredulously queries whether or not this surprising characteristic is really true, and another character simply says “Apparently”.

For a while, this was niggling at my enjoyment of the story, but it does result in some really thorny and interesting problems for our heroes to solve, and a genuinely exciting escalation of jeopardy towards the end of the book. So is it forgiven? Well, mostly.

This is thoroughly plot-driven story, but with a couple of very solid main characters. There is some romance, and the blurb refers to the book as “a deeply emotional story about time and loss and grief”, which, for me, is overstating the emotional content enormously. Yes, there is a believable connection between the two main characters, and the impact that this has on their decisions, and outcomes, make sense - but I never felt the emotion of their relationship. However, this isn’t to say that the book is without an emotional impact: some of the climactic sequences towards the end of the book are quite raw - and appropriately so.

If I’d have felt the emotion between the main characters, and if my suspension of disbelief hadn’t been so robustly challenged, then it would have been a firm 5 stars. But it’s still a solid, page-turning thriller, based on a unique, imaginative, and interestingly complex central premise.

My rating: ★★★★☆

“One Day All This Will Be Yours” by Adrian Tchaikovsky

What a blast. An excellent story about the lone survivor of a time war that has shattered time across the universe. All he wants is to be left alone, protecting the future from anything similar ever happening again.

I loved this from start to finish. I love a time travel story, especially where the mechanisms and consequences of time travel are self consistent and interesting - and this is a treatment of time travel I’d never come across before. Tchaikovsky seems to excel at writing the kind of flippant first-person narrative that I really enjoy, and the whole story is peppered with funny, snarky, witty, pithy, outrageous and simply joyous little moments of fun and dark humour. And the storytelling is superb.

Six stars out of five, rounded down.

My rating: ★★★★★

"In Universes" by Emet North

An incredibly imaginative and compelling tale across parallel universes, as we follow various versions of our main character, Raffi, as they search for identity, belonging, love and redemption.

The book can be seen as a set of 11 short stories involving Raffi and a loosely common set of people and situations. These are tied together by a single thread of regret about an incident with one of Raffi’s friends, Britt, when they were teenagers. The other characters - Kay, Graham, Alice - have different roles in each story: sometimes friends, sometimes lovers, sometimes just acquaintances.

Raffi is a cosmologist, with an interest and expertise in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics - the theory that the randomness of quantum mechanics is resolved by all possible outcomes occurring in alternate, newly created worlds. But that’s where the science stops - this is not really a sci-fi book, and there is no attempt to explain any mechanisms for people to travel to, or even be aware of, the alternate worlds. Rather, each story is set in an alternate universe, and any brief mention of the science just serves to guide the reader’s understanding about the loose relationship between each story. And that’s not a criticism - I actually found it a subtle but effective way to relieve what might otherwise be jarring switches of context between each story.

In most of the worlds, Raffi is dealing with feelings of loss, regret, or detachment. By the end of each story, Raffi tends to come to a conclusion that that these feels are unresolved, and wonders what life would be like in different circumstances. Each following story then takes on some of these different characteristics, but often with other significant changes - sometimes fantastical rather than realistic. And sometimes these are as a consequence of what Raffi wishes for (Monkey’s Paw style), and sometimes they are a vehicle to explore other issues (like the world in which women fracture into hordes of animals).

In one respect this is a difficult read, because each of the stories is a further exploration of these feelings of loss and regret, which remain unresolved for a majority of the book. However, this was lifted enormously by the range and breadth of imagination that the author has poured into each story. Each chapter could stand alone as a short story in its own right, with its own unique sense of character and place. Even (or especially) those with a fantastical element, where the world building was concise and compelling.

I found Raffi’s search for identity, for an authentic self, and for a sense of redemption or resolution, to be engaging and compelling. And that’s testament to the author, as I have found these themes in other books to be off-putting when they come across as the minor dissatisfactions of someone in an otherwise privileged situation. But I found Raffi’s character to be sympathetic, and these struggles of identity and authenticity to be meaningful rather than trite.

And I found the final story, with its fantastical elements, to be a fitting conclusion to Raffi’s struggles.

So why not 5 stars? Only because I found the book so difficult to pick up from time to time. And by three-quarters of the way through the book, I was finding it affecting my mood - but perhaps that in itself is an indication of the quality of the writing and emotional engagement.

This book isn’t for everyone, and I definitely need something lighter for my next read. But it is an incredibly accomplished debut work.

Thank you #NetGalley and Random House UK Cornerstone for the free review copy of #InUniverses in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★★★☆

NetGalley review

“Rare Singles” by Benjamin Myers

DNF at 66%.

This is a gentle character driven observational story about an American soul singer, Earlon “Bucky” Bronco, who has had no fame at home in Chicago, but gets invited to a “Weekender” Northern Soul event Scarborough in England - due to a level of fame and adulation in the UK that he was previously unaware of. His host, Dinah, is also struggling in her home life, but finds solace in the music. Bucky battles his own demons of physical pain, drug addiction and bereavement, as he tries to find his place amongst an enthusiastic crowd of Northern Soul fans.

This should have been an emotional and engaging story. The characters of Bucky and Dinah should have felt real to me, in a way that I could have connected to. The writing style is lyrical and poetic, especially Bucky’s inner monologue - his observations of the world around him are detailed and expressive, which ought to have given Bucky and emotional depth.

But, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, I couldn’t connect to Bucky or Dinah - I felt like I was being told about their thoughts and feelings, rather than experiencing them. And without that emotional connection, the slow story progress and expressive, detailed passages of Bucky’s experiences and thoughts felt like wading through descriptive treacle in order to get to the next plot point. Perhaps also due to my lack of emotional engagement with the characters, the growing relationship between Bucky and Dinah also felt forced, and their moments of connection then felt slightly saccharine.

This is a shame, because I really wanted to enjoy this book, and the characters of Bucky and Dinah should be sympathetic, and have an interesting journey. In the end, I found myself skimming over descriptive passages that should have been emotionally engaging, and continuing beyond that point wasn’t going to benefit anyone.

Thank you #NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for the free review copy of #RareSingles in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★☆☆☆

NetGalley review

“Walking to Aldebaran” by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Wow, that was intense. In this novella, Gary Rendell is lost and alone inside an alien artefact in the outer reaches of the solar system. The exploratory mission he was on went wrong, and now he’s wandering the corridors of this strange ancient place, trying to find his way home, or at least something familiar.

Adrian Tchaikovsky captures the alienness of the location, and everything that Gary comes across while he’s exploring, brilliantly, and there is a creepy sense of otherness that maintains the tension. The story is told in a dual timeline - the beginning of the mission, and Gary’s current predicament - alternating between chapters. We slowly learn what happened to the exploratory team at the start of the expedition, while Gary’s current attempts to find a way home slowly unfold. The slightly flippant first-person narrative helps the story skirt the edges of unreliable narration, giving the question of how Gary has survived so long a sense of doubt and unease.

A very well paced, straight-forward plot, just the right length, excellently told, and nicely disturbing.

My rating: ★★★★☆

"Sourcery" by Terry Pratchett

A story of wizards in Discworld when a “sourceror” emerges - someone who can harness the enormous power of the very source of magic. And, of course, power corrupts. When the use of such powerful magic starts to unravel reality itself, it is up to our collection of unwilling and accidental anti-heroes to save the day.

The hapless wizard Rincewind, mainstay of the first two Discworld novels, is one of the central characters. He is quickly joined by Conina the Hairdresser, who is surprisingly handy with a sword (and anything else that could possibly be construed as a weapon). Amongst the supporting cast, a few old favourites make an appearance: the Luggage, the Librarian, and, of course Death.

If this had been my first Terry Pratchett book, I’m not sure I’d be inclined to read any more. This might be because I’m not especially engaged with the wizards as a set of characters (including Rincewind himself), and this may be why I also didn’t really enjoy The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. To me, there’s nothing inherently enlightening, funny, or relatable about the wizards: they are selfish, lazy, privileged, beaurocratic, and stuffy - and Pratchett’s undoubted skill at injecting humour into their characters only really brings my opinion back up to ambivalence.

Not only does this story suffer from featuring the wizards, but it features the worst aspects of their character - so the rest of the book was going to have to do some heavy lifting for me to enjoy it. Unfortunately, the other aspects of Pratchett’s style and storytelling didn’t tip the balance for me. In fact, the redeeming qualities I would have otherwise expected in Pratchett’s writing also seemed to be subdued, and I found myself only rarely chuckling at the kind of concisely funny turn of phrase that Pratchett usually turns out in abundance.

It felt very much like he was tired, or fulfiling a contractual obligation, or just having a bad day.

I do love the Librarian, though. How you can get so much emotion from an orangutan who can only say “Oook” (or occasionally “Eeek”) is a testament to Pratchett’s writing.

My rating: ★★☆☆☆

“Everyone I Know is Dying” by Emily Slapper

Trigger warning: suicide ideation.

This is a very difficult for me to review. On the one hand this is a very accomplished, intense, authentic and powerful portrayal of someone struggling with significant mental health issues in the context of the societal and peer pressures that young women face. And I say that with no authority, as I’m not a young woman, but that’s how it seems to me. And on the other hand, I found reading it a chore. My rating is for the quality and importance of the book that I believe that it is. And I’m attributing my lack of enjoyment down to me being the wrong audience.

Is that fair? I don’t know. It is what it is.

The book is essentially in two parts: the first part (the first 34 chapters, or roughly 90%) is an incredibly raw portrayal of the day-to-day struggles of Iris, a young woman trying to understand what happiness is, whilst searching for it in the reflected judgement of others; the second part (the final 3 chapters) is the resolution. The resolution was exactly what I expected it to be, but also the only thing it possibly could be - and is also totally fitting, given what I believe the author is trying to say.

The main body of the book is a brave, difficult, genuine, and very difficult portrayal of Iris grappling with her sense of self, identity, and worth. She sees herself only in the reaction she gets from other people; she has no genuine friendships; she is not her authentic self.

“I can’t understand why people don’t like to be seen as objects when to be seen as an object is to be desired. This is why I keep coming back”

She knows that there is something lacking in her life, and she persistently misidentifies it, bouncing from one potential source of happiness to another.

“It’s disconcerting when you realise that getting what you want doesn’t make you feel better”

There is an audience for this book, and it isn’t me. That’s not to say that I didn’t get anything from reading it - rather that there was no part of me that could identify with anything that Iris was going through. All I could really do was feel sorry for her. Perhaps I got a deeper understanding of the internal struggle related to certain types of mental health issue. But for that I need to totally rely on the authenticity of what the author is portraying (which I have no reason to doubt) rather than being able to draw on any of my own experience.

Reading the comments about this book from other reviewers makes it clear that there is an audience for this book - people who can directly relate to some of the struggles that Iris had. In the reviews I have read, there are more comments from people who directly relate to Iris, at least in some small part, than from those who don’t. And for those people, I have a sense that the portrayal of Iris has a resonance, depth, and meaning.

If I could relate to Iris, this would probably be a 5-star read. If I were to give a rating solely on my personal, subjective enjoyment of the book, it is a 3-star read. What’s a reviewer to do?

Thank you #NetGalley and HQ for the free review copy of #EveryoneIKnowisDying in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★★★☆

NetGalley review

“Inside the Mind of Sherlock Holmes” by Cyril Lieron

This is a beautiful, detailed and intricate graphic novel of an original Sherlock Holmes story. The art style was meticulous, and showed a real love of the material. Victorian London is superbly represented, and it carried a sense of mystery and untold things happening behind closed doors all the way through the book. The storytelling was excellent, and the pacing was spot on. I absolutely loved it.

My experience with Holmes is limited and mixed: the only book I have read is Hound of the Baskervilles, which I didn’t get on with; but I absolutely love the TV adaptation with Benedict Cumberbatch playing the part of Holmes. I never understood how Holmes can be so engaging, interesting, and a deductive genius in the TV adaptation, but come across as arrogant and supercilious in the book. Thankfully, the Holmes in this graphic novel comes across as the deductive genius I love so much in the TV adaptation - slightly irascible and impatient at times, but always one step ahead.

The blurb says that the book “uniquely portrays the inner workings of the greatest detective’s mind” and “every thought and clue that flows through Sherlock’s mind is thoroughly explored and displayed in the art for readers to latch onto” and it absolutely delivers on this. At several points through the book, we see inside Holmes’ “mind palace”, where he analyses the clues that he’s uncovered up to that point. In between these, the clues are represented on a visual “thread” that runs throughout the entire book, on which various clues and deductions are placed as they turn up. It’s an excellent use of the graphic novel format to show the progression of clues and their relationships. Together, these techniques allow the development of the clues and deductions to be easily followed, and I felt like I was along for the ride.

The artwork is absolutely gorgeous - fantastic use of maps of London, and incredibly atmospheric locations. I loved the use of repetition across panels (and often within the same panel) to show movement and the passage of time (I tried to find a technical term for this, and I’m not sure there is one… polyptych?).

There is a dedication to Peter Cushing at the front of the book, and the depiction of Holmes is clearly on homage to Peter Cushing’s portrayal of Holmes in the 1960’s TV adaptation. A lovely touch.

Six stars, rounded down to five.

Thank you #NetGalley and Titan Books for the free review copy of #InsideTheMindofSherlockHolmes in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★★★★

NetGalley review

“Mort” by Terry Pratchett

I will always enjoy Terry Pratchett’s character of Death, but I would have preferred him as a main rather than supporting character in this serviceable but unremarkable Discworld story.

Death decides to take on an apprentice, and chooses Mortimer, Mort, or simply “Boy”. While Death takes advantage of having an apprentice by having some well earned “me time” amongst normal folk, Mort engages in some unsurprising hormone-driven hijinx, as an obvious consequence of being an adolescent without the self-control to handle the power he’s been given.

The plot is amiable, and the pacing is perfect. But the central adventure has all the hallmarks of the kind of YA that I don’t enjoy - characterised mainly by a lack of sophistication in the main character. There are also a couple of plot glitches around the character of Ysabell: why Death is essentially imprisoning her; and, an infeasible instant emotional about-face at one point. And, for me, this would be languishing in 2-star territory were it not for the richness and inventiveness of the world-building, Pratchett’s writing style (I always enjoy his tone and turn of phrase), and, of course Death, who is marvellous, and loves cats. Oh yes, and Binky.

“Titan’s Tears” by Chad Lester

Unfortunately, this wasn’t for me, and I stopped reading a third of the way through.

I wish I could say what the book was about - but it eludes me, even though I’ve read a full third of it. There are two major threads: Belle has a slightly mysterious background and goes to work for the mysterious Sophia, CEO of the mysterious Ecclestone Evolution, who are doing some mysterious work. It’s a grab-bag of future tech in a callous and unfeeling world: AI that’s “orders of magnitude” more powerful than a human brain, life-extending medical breakthroughs, bringing extinct animals back to life, lack of ethics or any kind of oversight, etc; and then there is Seth, a downtrodden worker just trying to make his way in a callous and unfeeling world, after a string of personal tragedies, while everyone’s jobs are being replaced by machines and there doesn’t appear to be any employment law.

Presumably these two threads come together later in the book.

There were a few reasons why I decided not to continue with this book, but overall it’s because my lack of engagement with any of the characters, coupled with a writing style that I found to be a distracting obstacle to my enjoyment, outweighed my curiosity about what was going on.

The writing style includes a lot of exposition - we’re told about what people are thinking and feeling, rather than allowing it to unfold through the actions and reactions of the characters. For me, this contributed significantly to my lack of engagement. But then suddenly there are pages of unbroken direct dialog between two characters - just line after line of quoted speech for page after page. I lost track of who was speaking several times. Then we’re back to the ponderous exposition again.

The pacing is also extremely inconsistent. The storyline around Belle and Sophia is almost glacially slow. For chapter after chapter very little happens beyond the drip-feed of mysterious goings-on at Ecclestone Evolution (did I mention that it was mysterious?). Every so often a nugget of what’s going on is revealed, but this feels like the author is dragging it out, presumably to create suspense and intrigue, but I found it transparent and irritating. And then Seth’s storyline is at express pace - hardly has he navigated one major or traumatic life event, than he’s negotiating the next. And while there is tragedy in his story, the whirlwind of plot doesn’t allow the time or space for any kind of emotional development or engagement.

The author seems to have some broad brush political opinions about corporate behaviour, which are ladled on in big dollops in both Seth’s storyline and Belle/Sophia’s - and it’s not clear whether these would have eventually become central to the plot, or whether the author just has a bit of an axe to grind and is using this book as a platform. And at one point, one of the characters who has a history of mental illness is referred to as “backwards” by one of the other characters. So perhaps I’ll take the author’s kind offer to bestow the benefit of his opinions on me, and leave it at the door.

Kthxbye.

Thank you #NetGalley and the author for the free review copy of #TitansTears in exchange for an honest review - for which I also apologise. All opinions are, clearly, my own.

My rating: ★☆☆☆☆

NetGalley review

"Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett

In a world where the number 8 is magical, the eighth son of an eighth son is a wizard. Enter Eskarina (Esk), who inconveniently comes along as the eighth daughter of an eighth son, and “everybody knows there’s no such thing as a female wizard”.

I absolutely loved this. OK, so this is an “underdog makes good” story, and the broad strokes of the plot will come as no surprise (Esk can only be trained as a wizard in the Unseen University - a famously misogynistic organisation that has never admitted women. I wonder what will have happened by the end of the story?) But the characters are an absolute joy, the plot and pacing are solid, the development of Discworld lore is fascinating, imaginative, witty, rich, and just very rewarding as world-building - especially in the knowledge of the pay-off in the 30+ books in the series.

I’m always slightly nervous when one of the main characters in a story is a child. But Esk doesn’t suffer from the unsophisticated naivety that could have made the story a chore. While the naivety is there by necessity, Esk still brings a richness and sophistication to the story telling through the inherent and intuitive understanding she has of her magical inheritance. This lifts it from being the predictable YA coming of age tale that I feared it might be.

And Granny Weatherwax is clearly a star in the making. I get the sense from reviews of later Discworld stories that her character development is something to look forward to.

Pratchett’s writing is an absolute delight. Of course.

My rating: ★★★★★

"Dandelion" by Sabir Pirzada

This graphic novel is a collection of ten short stories set in a world where outcasts and the dispossessed get to live their lives as “exiles” on floating capsules, “Dandelions”, with all of their living requirements met… except that they can never again land on solid ground.

This is an ambitious concept - the creation of a two tier society (in this case, as literal is it is figurative) caused by the pressures of climate change and job losses through automation. And it tries to pack a lot in: the psychological and societal impact of creating and underclass of people who are forced to live separately from the rest of society, the impact and opportunities that this will provide for criminality and surveillance, and the adjustments and sacrifices that normal people and families would have to make. Woven through this is a thread of the supposed inventor of Dandelion, Jen Nakamuto, and her reflections and regrets over the impact that the Dandelions have had.

I was looking forward to reading this. It should have been great. Unfortunately for me, it fell short of the mark. I think this is mostly due to how short each story was: ten stories in 120 pages barely allows each story to start developing before it hurtles towards its conclusion. Each story felt rushed and, leaving little space for emotional development of any of the characters or situations, with the result that I found it very difficult to engage with any of it.

This is such a shame, as the concept has the richness and potential for a novel length treatment. And there is such a collection of artistic talent; using different artists for each of the stories showcases a broad range of excellent artwork, and the change in visual style matched the change on point-of-view for each story.

Despite all of this, two things did stand out. Running between the main stories are snippets of the “Excerpt from the Statosphere podcast” interview with Jen Nakamuto. This set of reflections of the supposed inventor of the Dandelions, rendered in black and white was a nice counterpoint to the action in the main stories. And I found “The Bird” poignant and emotional (the fact that it had a talking octopus and lizard that was aware that its existence was within a graphic novel also helped). For me, though, these were just highlights in what felt overall like a missed opportunity.

Thank you #NetGalley and Image Comics for the free review copy of #Dandelion in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★☆☆☆

NetGalley review

“Service Model” by Adrian Tchaikovsky

What do you get when you throw a whole bunch of pop culture and literature references into an irreverent buddy-movie story starring a vehemently non-self-aware robot and a plucky sidekick trying to find meaning in a dystopian wasteland?

You get a fun, fast paced adventure, with a bit of existential angst, and some robot librarians. You can also use it as a light-hearted vehicle to ponder the nature of self-awareness, and the duties and responsibilities we have around the use and nature of AI; it’s there if you want it, or you can just enjoy the ride.

Charles, the domestic service robot, is forced to find alternative employment after the untimely death of his Master. His quest takes him through the remains of a collapsing human civilisation, where the groups of surviving people and robots that he meets present an array of temptations and dangers that he must navigate in his search for meaningful employment.

The story is in five parts, and is almost episodic, in that each part roughly corresponds to our heroes getting into trouble, navigating the jeopardy (while moving the narrative forward), and then escaping to the next part of their quest. Each part also has a thematic or stylistic flavour, signposted by the loosely disguised part titles (the interpretation of which I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader), which was a nice touch, for those that I got.

Does it have flaws? Well… maybe. In the early parts of the book, I wasn’t convinced about the inflexibility of the AI to cope with novel situations. The robots are sophisticated enough to be able to cope with the ambiguity and assumptions involved in acting as a valet: organising their Master’s clothing, activities, and travel, for example. But those same robots are simultaneously incapable of dealing with the exact same levels of ambiguity in other contexts, or are debilitatingly literal - for example one robot had been waiting for years to greet some guests that it had been told would arrive, but had not been told how long to wait for them.

And there were a couple of pinch points in the plot when our heroes got themselves out of trouble in a way that made me say “Really?!” to myself.

But, for me at least, these are eminently forgivable. The inability of the robots to think outside the box is such an important thread that binds the plot together, that I was quite happy to put aside my mild incredulity (and, to be honest, if you can’t put this aside then you won’t enjoy the book). And the occasional opportunistic escape from trouble kept the plot moving, and contributed to the episodic nature of the story - which I found enjoyably reminiscent of old “Saturday morning cinema” sci-fi like Flash Gordon (but that might just be me).

The story is packed with popular culture references - and those that I spotted made me smile (”2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Star Wars” and “The Wizard of Oz” are all in there, for example). I’m sure there were many that I missed - in the same way that I didn’t get the references for all of the part titles - but that doesn’t matter. It annoys me when an author tries to show off with this kind of thing, but that wasn’t the case here - it was just a bit of extra fun.

I also really liked the tone. There is a witty irreverence that suits my preference, but in this case I also found it reminiscent of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett in places, which I really enjoyed.

So, despite the flaws, a solid 5 starts. I can see myself revisiting this - for the humour, the story, the robot librarians, and the philosophical exploration of the nature of free will and self awareness.

Thank you #NetGalley and Pan MacMillan / Tor for the free review copy of #ServiceModel in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★★★★

NetGalley review

“Quarantine Notes: Aphorisms on Morality and Mortality“ by Yahia Lababidi

I don’t really have a frame of reference for reviewing this. I’m not familiar with Lababidi’s works, nor aphorisms in general, but I found this collection inspirational. My thoughts are more eloquently summarised in the Afterword by Andrew Benson Brown:

Yahia Lababidi […] somehow manages not to be trite or shallow in his appraisals, and even to be the opposite. His wisdom has an ancient quality that speaks to the present about its future.

…and…

This book […] encourages one to contemplate brevity by quarantining Lababidi’s sayings, mirroring the condition of their creation. Lababidi himself puts it in a way that nicely reflects the volume’s organization: “Aphorisms are the sushi of literature.” A large bite, carefully prepared by a master chef, delicately savored. Wrapped in white space like rice, each piece’s placement on the page helps cleanse the palate like a slice of ginger, preparing one for the next bite. Though readers will inevitably douse their sushi in the soy sauce of their peculiar, accidentally-acquired prejudices, the author would encourage light dipping so as to not overwhelm the natural flavor of each insight.

Lababidi is clearly very spiritual, and this comes across in many of the aphorisms. While I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself that way, I found that even those aphorisms that had an overt spiritual nature still spoke to me in a way that I found relevant.

I took a long time to read this, as I wanted to savour each morsel. And I’m glad I did. And I will almost certainly revisit it.

My rating: ★★★★☆

“Merlin’s Gun” by Alastair Reynolds

The fourth and final story in the Merlin chronology, this short story was actually written first. This sees Merlin at the end of his quest for a weapon that will be capable of defeating the Huskers - an enemy that would destroy the entirety of humankind.

The story is told from the perspective of Sora, a young woman that Merlin saves after she is left alone in suspended animation after a Husker attack. Due to time dilation of relativistic travel, and the existence of suspended animation technology, Merlin has become a millennia-old legend in Sora’s time. A legend who has now appeared as potential saviour, at a time when the long-standing war with the Huskers has been going very badly.

Oh, how I wish this was at least the size of a novella. There is the barest of setup, followed by an extended reveal, that hints at Merlin’s extended lifetime, the nature and purpose of the weapon, and even a surprising revelation about the Huskers themselves. This left too much unexplored for my liking - and, while the ending of the story, and the saga, was satisfying, it left my frustrated that there is a rich vein of material that could have been mined for a much meatier experience.

It’s been an enjoyable series, though, and Merlin’s Gun rounds it off nicely. It gives me a good feeling about Alastair Reynolds’ other work.

My rating: ★★★☆☆

“The Iron Tactician” by Alastair Reynolds

The Iron Tactician is the third novelette in the Merlin chronology, and is a fast-paced plot-driven story featuring space battles, moral choices, and some surprising royal ancestry.

Merlin’s syrinx is damaged. This is a navigation device left by the builders of the Waynet - an ancient network of inter-stellar conduits. Without his syrinx, and access to the Waynet, Merlin cannot continue on his long standing quest to find a weapon that will defeat the Huskers, who threaten to eradicate the whole of humanity.

Merlin finds out about a star system in which two factions have been fighting a long lasting war. One faction has a syrinx, and Merlin finds himself negotiating with them: he must help recover a stolen tactical computer - the Iron Tactician - in exchange for their syrinx.

There are themes here around the morality of attempting a short, sharp military victory - along with some exploration of whether that’s ever really possible. There are echoes of the previous story, Minla’s Flowers, here, where similar themes were explored. And, of course, these questions are pertinent to real life conflicts that have happened in recent memory.

However, the story primarily revolves around some plot-heavy military conflict, and it’s exciting stuff. When a book gets particularly exciting, I have an annoying (to me) habit of starting to skip forwards - so keen to find out what happens next. And I found myself having to control this habit several times as the pace picked up in the second half of the story.

The was an enjoyable episode in the Merlin series, although with more action and less depth than the first two stories, Hideaway and Minla's Flowers. And while Reynolds writes the action sequences very well, I preferred the more thoughtful content in the first two books. The series concludes in the next book, Merlin's Gun.

My rating: ★★★☆☆

“The Discworld Graphic Novels” by Terry Pratchett

This covers the first two Discworld books, in graphic novel form. It was exactly what I wanted it to be - a fun, somewhat abridged, adaptation of The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. I’ve read the original novels before, albeit a long time ago, so I was already familiar with the characters, and they were brought to life quite well. It was a quick and easy way for me to revisit the first two books, with the extra enjoyment of seeing it all as a graphic novel.

I found myself dipping into the novels a few times, just out of curiosity about the accuracy of the adaptation (was Liessa really dressed like that?), and was always pleasantly surprised - but pleasantly surprised in two ways: firstly, that the adaptation seemed very accurate (yes, she really was dressed like that), but also that the richness, humour, and fun from the books was all coming from Pratchett’s writing. The graphic novel does a decent enough job of, well… telling the story graphically - and is certainly an excellent illustration of the original novels. And while the abridgement suited The Colour of Magic quite well, as the book is a series of short, relatively unrelated episodes, The Light Fantastic felt a little disjoint in places. The thing I found must surprising about my experience of reading the graphic novels, though, was that it made me want to read the original books.

So this graphic novel gave me exactly what I wanted: it was a quick and easy way to revisit those first two novels, to kick off my intended journey through the entire series. And it was nice to see the cowardice of Rincewind, the naivety of Twoflower, the unstoppable tenacity of the Luggage, and the unlikely romance between Cohen and Bethan, all played out for me again.

Has this whetted my appetite for the rest of Discworld? Yes, definitely. Would I read them in graphic novel form if they were all available as such? Probably not.

My rating: ★★★☆☆

"Minla's Flowers" by Alastair Reynolds

Minla’s Flowers is the second short story in the chronology of the Merlin series by Alastair Reynolds. Where the first story, Hideaway, was plot heavy, Minla’s Flowers is more philophical - covering issues around influence, interference, and self determination in a society.

Merlin’s ship is damaged, and he seeks help on a nearby little-known planet, Lecythus, which was colonised by humans in the distant past, but has been out of touch with broader human society ever since.

The two factions on the planet have been at war for decades - with a technology level equivalent to early 20th century Earth. On top of this, Merlin identifies an extinction level event that will occur in about 70 years - an event that he knows they will not have the technology to avoid.

The story that unfolds explores the morality of interference, and follows similar themes used in, for example, Star Trek’s “Prime Directive” (a directive against interference with non-spacefaring peoples). The technology to avoid extinction could also swing the balance of power in the war, and the story touches on what actions can be justified in order to achieve a greater goal.

This makes for a thoughtful reading experience, and I enjoyed the moral ambiguity throughout the story, and in the ending.

My rating: ★★★★☆

(Side note: This story could probably be read stand-alone, but the first short story, Hideaway, did a lot of world building that this story uses as background and context for Merlin. It can be read as part of the collection “Beyond the Aquila Rift”, where it is presented stand-alone. It can also be read in the “Zima Blue” collection, where it is presented alongside Hidaway and Merlin’s Gun).

“Knife” by Salman Rushdie

This is an immensely personal, intimate, moving, and powerful account of 13 months in Salman Rushdie’s life. On 12 August 2022, when he is about to start a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution, a man rushes onto the stage an attacks him with a knife. This almost claimed Rushdie’s life, and cost him the sight in one eye. The book charts 13 months of the physical and emotional impact of this attack on Rushdie and those in his closest circles of love and friendship. His account of the incident, and the impact it had on his physical health, his wife and family, is eloquent and moving.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the attack itself, and the aftermath of hospitalisation and rehab. The description of the attack is intense and immediate, and feels immensely personal. The second part is reflective on Rushdie reclaiming some sense of normality, and trying to find some perspective for the incident and its ongoing impact on his life.

I knew very little about Salman Rushdie before reading this - beyond the fact of the fatwa issued in 1989 for his death, due to the content of his book The Satanic Verses. And it was the long tail of that fatwa that, ultimately, and obtusely, resulted in the knife attack. Rushdie draws on his knowledge of history, politics, art, literature, and philosophy to try to bring meaning and context to what has happened to him.

It’s difficult to find fault with such a personal, honest, introspective - and, ultimately, engaging and well told - account.

Thank you #NetGalley and Random House UK / Vintage for the free review copy of #Knife in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★★★★

NetGalley Review

“The Ministry of Time” by Kaliane Bradley

This was a compelling and engaging cross-genre combination of time-travel, mystery/thriller, historical fiction, and romance. It had a lot to pack in, and it did it very well.

According to the blurb: “In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Arctic.”

The first half of the story is establishing Graham and the other expats in the 21st century. This part of the book is a charming fish-out-of-water tale, as the expats try to adjust to cultural and technological differences from their own time. The main expat character, Graham, is incredibly likeable. He has a laid back, sarcastic take on the world, and his dry observations of what he seems around him are insightful and often pithy. I also really enjoyed the character of Maggie, from 1665, whose joyous and boisterous reaction to the pleasures of 21st century living were delightful, and made me laugh.

I don’t generally read historical novels, so it was an added interest for me that Graham Gore was a member of the Franklin Expedition, an ill fated expedition into the arctic.

The friendship between our main character (whose name, weirdly, we never find out) and Graham grows throughout the first half of the book, and continues to blossom as the story progresses. Most of the first two-thirds of the book are taken up with establishing the characters and the romance. There’s even a bit of smut thrown in, for those who like that in their books.

As the plot develops, it becomes clear that all is not as it seems with The Ministry, and our intrepid band of expats and ‘bridges’ are both caught up in, and try to navigate, the unfolding events. The time travel elements were quite satisfying - the time travel ‘door’ isn’t fully understood by The Ministry, and the cautious approach to time travel contributed to the plot. At about 80% of the way through the story, the pace picks up, things start to come to a head, and it became a real page turner.

Only one niggle for me: I would personally have preferred a different balance between the character/romance development and the mystery/thriller elements of the plot (less romance, more plot) - especially as, despite the focus and detail on their relationship, I never really felt the emotion in the romantic relationships.

But regardless of this, it’s a cracking story, with something for everyone, and a masterful combination of genres.

Thank you #NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton / Sceptre for the free review copy of #TheMinistryofTIme in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★★★☆

NetGalley Review

“Hideaway” by Alastair Reynolds

Hideaway is a short story that starts the chronology of the Merlin series by Alastair Reynolds. It packs an enormous amount of plot into a very short space, and is a wild ride of world building, concepts, plot, jeopardy and character development, all wrapped up in a hard sci-fi shell.

Set in a universe where the last vestiges of humanity are running from the ‘Huskers’, who would have humanity wiped out. The inevitability of being trapped by the Huskers in a deep space equivalent of a pincer movement leads a group of Humans, including the title character, Merlin, to hide rather than run.

The story spans several years - the inevitability of the Huskers’ arrival doesn’t mean it’s imminent… just inevitable. During this time, our people find themselves in a star system in which they could potentially hide, but also has some mysterious characteristics. The exploration of these mysteries, and their consequences for our intrepid band of humanity, carries us through the story.

There is a lot of ground that gets covered, and the writing is very concise - although it sometimes felt like I was drinking from a plot and world-building fire hose. But the result is very satisfying. My only complaint is that the story feels a little empty of people, despite how many thousands there actually are. But this is almost certainly just a consequence of having to squeeze so much plot, and some decent character development of the small number of main characters, into the short space available. This left me wishing it had been a novella rather than a short story.

An enjoyable introduction to the series. I look forward to the rest.

My rating: ★★★★☆