BOOKS
BOOK REVIEWS ARE BASED ON PERSONAL CHOICE WHETHER YOU WORK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES OR A BLOG THAT PRACTICALLY NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT. IT'S GOOD TO HAVE AT LEAST ONE OTHER OPINION, EVEN IF IT'S JUST SO WE CAN DISAGREE.
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SEVENEVES
The best way for me to describe this novel would be to call it The Silmarillion in Space. It's almost as epic and mythical as Tolkien's major work behind The Lord of The Rings and at times just as much hard work to read. In fairness it is described as 'hard science fiction' and while I am a sci-fi fan I'm not a tech head and so the laboured, for me, passages giving intricate details of the hardware and space survival techniques left me cold.
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SHERLOCK HOLMES vs. CTHULHU
I'll admit I'm a Holmes fan and enjoy the character in (almost) all of his manifestations. That's what caught my eye when I came across Lois H. Gresh's novel, along with the sub-title The Adventure of the Deadly Dimensions. Sadly the book didn't live up to my expectations, but that may not entirely be the author's fault.
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AMERICAN GODS
The emergence of the new TV phenomenon that is American Gods seduced me into watching the first episode online. I read the novel some years ago and was engrossed not just by the weirdly literate style, plot and characters, but also by the concept of old gods and new gods meeting up in the new world.
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THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS
Every now and then a book comes along that you very badly want to talk about but you also very badly want not to spoil for others. This is one of those books. Let's just say it puts a new spin on a very current horror genre by telling the story from not only the point of view of the characters that usually would be the antagonists but from the perspective of a group of children.
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OMENS
Let's get this out of the way, we have a young woman with a problem who goes to live in a strange town and meets up with a socially stunted young professional with a past. She also hooks up with a 'bad boy' who isn't really a bad boy and part of her troubles include an ex-fiancee with a definite personality flaw. No, I haven't begun to review City of The Lost again, but you'd be forgiven for getting confused.
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MR. MERCEDES
Stephen King said this was his first hard-boiled detective book and indeed it is. The plot makes it a page turner and the characters are as real as any King characters have ever been, and that's about as life-like as they get. His retired detective (to be played on TV by Irish actor Brendan Gleeson), complete with middle-aged health problems, is sufficiently weather-worn and cantankerous to take his place in the detectives' hall of fame with any of the greats.
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SAPIENS
I've developed the habit over the years of balancing my fiction addiction with reading some thought balancing non-fiction. That's not to say I don't learn a lot about the "real world" and life from good fiction, but sometimes my inner-nerd needs feeding. On this occasion the meal was less of a mental snack and more of a full-on feast.
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FRANKENSTEIN – THE SERIES
I've been reading Dean Koontz novels on and off for decades, so when I saw he was rebooting the Frankenstein story I was intrigued, to say the least. The concept of updating old stories to a modern setting isn't a new one and it certainly is in vogue as far as TV is concerned - Grimm,
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THE FIREMAN
I like Joe Hill's work and reviewed his debut novel too and this book is no exception to that emerging rule, but I'd have to question when the blurb compares the "epic scope" of The Fireman with The Passage. Thankfully though it also got it wrong when it drew a line between Hill's novel and The Road - The Fireman is much more accessible and a lot less pretentious.
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STALLO
Secret societies, conspiracies, kidnapping and trolls, yes trolls, sure what else would you need to create a seriously literate supernatural thriller? Throw into the mix the varied and mythical landscape of Sweden and characters that are both immediately everyday and extraordinary, and you get a novel that makes you want to read at double speed just to see what happens next.
