ELRIC by MICHAEL MOORCOCK
Gollancz/Millenium Masterworks paperback, 432pp, RRP GB£7.99

Reviewed by David McWilliam

---

Elric of Melniboné can perhaps be considered Michael Moorcock’s most successful creation in terms of sheer popularity. The albino prince of a dying race, Elric is a powerful sorcerer whose physical prowess is bolstered by his sword, Stormbringer.The blade exacts a heavy price from its wielder, tormenting his dreams, influencing Elric’s decisions in favour of violence so that it can feed on the souls and blood of the living. Without Stormbringer Elric is reduced to a weakened, near-blind state, becoming vulnerable to his adversaries and execrable to his own elitist, imperial heredity. The blade and fighter have an almost symbiotic relationship, seemingly bound together by the threads of Fate - and it is unclear as to which of the two holds mastery over the other.

(more…)

Tags: book • Elric • Fantasy • Moorcock • review • Stormbringer

FUTURES FROM NATURE edited by HENRY GEE
Tor Books hardback, 320pp, RRP US$24.95

Reviewed by Shaun C Green

---

Packed with a numeric century of sf yarns from as many writers, Futures From Nature is a book ideal for dipping into for a quick reading session. All the stories contained within first appeared in the pages of the British science journal Nature, and the consistent theme is the titular future.

(more…)

Tags: book • flash fiction • Futures From Nature • Nature • review • Science Fiction

AIRMAN by EOIN COLFER
Puffin hardback, 432pp, RRP £10.99

Reviewed by Iain Emsley

---

Eoin Colfer’s Airman is a wonderful novel which is greater than the sum of its parts, half quasi-historical novel and half steampunk fantasy. Set on the Saltee Islands off the Atlantic coast of Ireland, Colfer creates an alternate history of derring-do and great invention.

(more…)

Tags: Airman • book • Eoin Colfer • Fantasy • historical • review • steampunk • YA • young adult

THE RIVER KNOWS ITS OWN by JAY LAKE
Wheatland Press paperback, pp263, RRP $19.95.

Reviewed by PENNY HILL

---

“Tommy “Leviathan” Hobbes was short, nasty and reeked of Brut.”

This is my favourite opening line in The River Knows Its Own, Jay Lake’s bohemian collection of short stories; simultaneously an homage to a cliché and a swift character sketch.

(more…)

Tags: book • collection • Fantasy • Jay Lake • review • Science Fiction • short stories • slipstream • The River Knows Its Own

WINTER WOOD by STEVE AUGARDE
David Fickling Books hardback, 512pp, £12.99 RRP

Reviewed by Iain Emsley

---

Winter Wood, the final part of Steve Augarde’s trilogy about the Various, is a bitter-sweet read. In the previous two books, The Various and Celandine, he has created a wonderfully deep and very English mythological landscape.

(more…)

Tags: book • Fantasy • review • Steve Augarde • Winter Wood • YA • young adult

AXIS by ROBERT CHARLES WILSON
Tor Books hardback, 304pp, $25.95

Reviewed by Chris Hill

---

Starting with 1986’s A Hidden Place, Robert Charles Wilson has written a sequence of solid, competent sf novels (not to mention a fine short story collection, The Perseids and other stories) which contrast small human stories with big science fictional concepts, often involving an outside agency imposing change on a community. Some critics have pointed out a resemblance (particularly in the early novels) to the works of Clifford D. Simak, which does not seem unreasonable. Spin finally won Wilson the Hugo Award for Best Novel.

(more…)

Tags: Axis • book • review • Robert Charles Wilson • Science Fiction • sf

RUNEMARKS by JOANNE HARRIS
Doubleday hardback, 500pp, £14.99

Reviewed by Iain Emsley

---

Joanne Harris’s d?©but children’s novel is a fantastic romp which is eminently readable. Her adult fiction flirts with the fantastic, delivering it gently, while Runemarks is a retelling of Norse myths which also sets up a mythical - almost ‘asterisk fantastic’ ‚Äì world within which she finds some very human characters.

(more…)

Tags: book • Fantasy • fiction • INTERZONE • Joanne Harris • review • Runemarks • young adult

SOMETHING BORROWED by PAUL MAGRS
Headline hardback/trade paperback, 310pp, £19.99/£11.99

The sequel to Never the Bride, Magrs’ latest novel continues the fan boy sensibility of his recent work with yet more of the adventures of Brenda, the Bride of Frankenstein, who now lives in Whitby and tackles mysteries with her good friend Effie, the descendant of a long line of wise women. And the ladies certainly have more than their fair share of troubles to contend with, what with their old friend Jessie being transformed into a flesh eating womanzee, a plague of poison pen letters that have the town held in the grip of fear, a troublesome haunting and a set of wicker garden furniture with attitude, to name just a few. To complicate matters further, Brenda‚Äôs former beau Henry is back on the scene, an immortal who stirs old memories of things best left forgotten, of their long ago involvement with the Smudgelings and fight against Count Alucard. (more…)

Tags: black • book • Borrowed • Bride • Frankenstein • Magrs • reviews • Something • static • Tennant • Whitby

THE CAGE by KENZO KITAKATA
Vertical paperback, 230pp, $14.95

The author is billed as ‚Äòthe undisputed don of hardboiled and mystery writing in Japan‚Äô, which is fair enough, but there‚Äôs nothing distinctively Japanese about this book. Change some of the names, substitute mafia for yakuza, or use the more generic gang, and it could just as easily be set in New York or LA. Plotwise it in part reprises Cronenberg‚Äôs A History of Violence, or any Bellow/Updike novel about a man undergoing a mid-life crisis, with the proviso that in this case the man is a gangster. (more…)

Tags: black • book • Cage • Japan • Kitakata • Peter Tennant • reviews • static • Tennant

GLASSHOUSE by CHARLES STROSS

Orbit paperback, 400pp, £6.99

Reviewed by David McWilliam

---

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CAN BE CONSIDERED TO CONTAIN SPOILERSLet me begin by stating that Charles Stross’s Glasshouse is a text where ideas take centre stage. This is not an indictment of his plotting or characterisation, both of which are handled assuredly throughout, but an indication of the breadth of imagination on display in a novel which is simultaneously a cyberpunk thriller and a complex moral satire - of both our own “dark age” and the text’s fragmented posthuman narrator. (more…)

Tags: book • Glasshouse • posthuman • review • Science Fiction • scifi • sf • Stross