"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: ★★★★★

"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