Reviews
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The Death House by Sarah Pinborough Published 2015, Gollancz This is one of the free books I picked up at FantasyCon 2015. I’ve not read anything by Sarah Pinborough before but I have heard her speak at events. In a post-apocalyptic future some people have developed a genetic mutation that reveals itself in the teenage…
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Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny Published 1971, Faber and Faber This was so much fun. In a post-nuclear holocaust America only the coastal cities have survived. Boston has a plague that threatens its survival and Los Angeles has the cure. A messenger made the crossing to ask for the cure but didn’t survive the effects…
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Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. MacAvoy Published 1983, Bantam Books Martha Macnamara comes to San Francisco to see her daughter, a genius computer programmer, only to discover she’s missing. At the hotel Martha meets Mayland Long, an ancient black dragon taking the form of a human in order to seek enlightenment. Mayland…
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Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari Published 2011 Sapiens: A brief history of humankind is a very interesting book that challenges a lot of received wisdom about humans – what we are, why we do what we do, how we got to this point in history. Harari is a historian but this isn’t the history of…
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Deathworld, by Harry Harrison Published 1960, by Bantam Books Humans have colonized many planets in the galaxy and in most places they live in sealed bubbles that provide a breathable atmosphere. But on one planet, life has become nothing more than a daily fight for survival. Every living thing on Pyrrus seems intent on destroying…
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Dreaming the Bull is the second of Manda Scott’s Boudica series and covers the period AD 47-54. Breaca and Caradoc, war leaders of the Britons, are in Wales preparing to meet the Roman invasion. Breaca’s brother Ban has become a Roman and is part of the army that Breaca must fight. Inevitably, they lose and…
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Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m a fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books. They’re a comfort read. I know what I’m getting and I know I’m going to like it. I don’t expect to be surprised. In Make Me, Reacher arrives in a small town called Mother’s Rest. He’s there on…
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I love my kindle. It’s much better not having to carry around several books and I run out of something to read much less frequently. I still read and buy physical books but I don’t think reading on the kindle is a less rich experience. The one downside of the kindle, though, is I can’t…
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A little while ago I decided I didn’t want to write any more reviews of books I didn’t enjoy. There are two reasons for this. First, I don’t like doing it, the posts are hard to write, I don’t want to be negative, and I believe that if you can’t say something nice don’t say…
Boudica Marginalia 