Book Review: Zodiac by Neal Stephenson

Written in 1988 before the publication of his other various well-known, award-winning and huge novels, Zodiac is Neal Stephenson’s fast-paced and irreverent eco-thriller that mixes organic chemistry with environmental campaigning and zany humour to produce an indefinable cocktail of a novel.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Stormblood by Jeremy Szal

I met Jeremy Szal briefly at WorldCon in Dublin last year. That’s all there is to that story I’m afraid. 

Stormblood is his debut novel, a 500-page military, crime, action, slightly gothic, space opera thriller of epic scale and gritty detail. The front cover presents a futuristic Gotham-Cityesque panorama with the brooding figure of Vakov Fukasawa facing it head on.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Vietnamese Trio

I'm very excited to announce that a trio of my stories has been accepted for publication by Vietnamese literary webzine ZZZ Review.

I don't have confirmed dates yet, but these three stories will be making an appearance in Vietnamese at some point:

Englebert

The Gondolier

The righteous Indignation of the Naked Mole Rat

Book Review: Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman

It’s difficult to come up with a truly original and unique human society in which to set your story. Even when writing about other planets and other times, we tend to end up with societies that have some basis in current or past human cultures. Authors who invent new alien species can often have more scope in the variety of cultures they create but, in general, humans are humans and their societies are comfortingly familiar to us. 

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Critical Point by S.L. Huang

Critical Point is the third Cas Russell novel by S.L. Huang, a mathematics graduate and stuntwoman who has used her experience to create the unlikely yet fabulously effective mathematical genius mercenary/private detective Cas Russell.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Observers Audio Version

The audio version of my flash fiction story Observers is out now at Tall Tale TV

This is my third story there, following on from Escapades in Time and The Righteous Indignation of the Naked Mole Rat last year, all read by the entertainingly talented Chris Herron.

Book Review: Sea Change by Nancy Kress

In the not-too-distant future, the world is looking rather fragile following an economic crash, rising sea levels and massive food shortages that have followed on from a backlash against genetically modified organisms.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: The Disestablishment of Paradise by Phillip Mann

A book of wonderful imagery and almost mystical storytelling, Phillip Mann’s The Disestablishment of Paradise takes us on a magical journey of the far future where one of mankind’s colony worlds is being abandoned and left to nature. It’s not for the sake of nature that this disestablishment of the colony is taking place. After three generations of mining and agriculture and the extinction of several large species, it comes down to economics. The colony is to be deconstructed and all humans relocated.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Venus of Venus

I'm very pleased to have sold my 5000 word story Venus of Venus to Shelter of Daylight magazine, where it will appear in July. It's a story about an interplanetary expedition and reality TV.

Book Review: Of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu

Cixin Liu is well known for his big concept novels, hard Science Fiction and far-future extrapolations: The Three Body Problem, Ball Lightning and The Supernova Era being the novels already translated into English. His latest work to be translated, Of Ants and Dinosaurs comes as somewhat of a surprise then.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.