After a long break, I express my annoyance at more books that should have been better. Part of the irregular Duds series (all links at the end). David Abulafia, The Boundless Sea Yes, it won the Wolfson History Prize. Yes, the author is a professional academic, a professor at the University of Cambridge, and a … Continue reading From merely annoying to utter tosh
Category: vaguely horror
Liz Williams, Miracles of Our Own Making: A History of Paganism
Liz Williams is a very well respected science fiction and fantasy author, and (until very recently) the co-proprietor of a witchcraft shop in Glastonbury (the shop may re-open after the pandemic has been brought under control). I have professional delaings with her, in that in February she spoke on a panel on women in sff … Continue reading Liz Williams, Miracles of Our Own Making: A History of Paganism
Ann Stafford, Army Without Banners
Handheld Press (which I run) will be publishing a novel in March 2020 called Business as Usual, by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford: it was originally published in 1933. I've been working on this since August last year. While researching the lives and careers of Oliver and Stafford I worked out that they published at … Continue reading Ann Stafford, Army Without Banners
Christina Dalcher, Vox
Update: Vox won the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award on 16 September 2019! The title of this very good thriller is a little misleading: the word 'Vox' (Latin for the voice of, as in 'vox populi', the voice of the people), doesn't appear anywhere in the novel. I was hoping for some time that it would … Continue reading Christina Dalcher, Vox
Avengers: Endgame.
HERE BE SPOILERS. Avengers: Endgame is not a film you can talk about in detail without spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, so please don't read on if you get upset by spoilers. I MEAN IT. I don't yet know if I liked the whole film or not. I was very bored in … Continue reading Avengers: Endgame.
Canadian sff: Sleeping Giants, and Bloody Rose
Two mini reviews of science fiction and fantasy novels by Canadian writers, of Sylvain Neuvel's Sleeping Giants, and Nicholas Eames' Bloody Rose. Sleeping Giants I enjoyed this a LOT. Partly it was the plot: gigantic metallic pieces of what appears to be a body are found buried in remote, and less remote, locations on Earth. … Continue reading Canadian sff: Sleeping Giants, and Bloody Rose
Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping
Odd title, that. Who lies sleeping, exactly? It's the latest Peter Grant / Rivers of London novel, and I gobbled it up over three evenings. But though I enjoyed it, and it had (at the beginning) the potential to be one of the really rock-solid, hard-hitting novels in the series, like Broken Homes, for instance, … Continue reading Ben Aaronovitch, Lies Sleeping
Emma Geen, The Many Selves of Katherine North
This novel had been recommended to me by a Twitter friend a year ago, in terms that made me think that it must be a sf classic, a great sf novel by a British woman that I had unaccountably missed. He too may have got the dates wrong, because this is a 2017 novel by … Continue reading Emma Geen, The Many Selves of Katherine North
Walter de la Mare, Memoirs of a Midget
This strange and beautiful novel was published in 1921, perfectly positioned among Stella Benson's Living Alone (1919), David Garnett's Lady Into Fox (1922) and Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes (1926). All belong to the category of fantasy that allows the fantastical to live alongside the mundane, without comment or criticism, although mild resentment may be present, … Continue reading Walter de la Mare, Memoirs of a Midget
Sibyl Sue Blue
Sibyl Sue Blue is a sergeant in the police, a mother and a widow. (Or is she?) When she cruises bars in disguise to picks up the information she needs, she manages to look decades younger than she really is with wigs and makeup (and by choosing rather dim men). She adroitly refuses advances from … Continue reading Sibyl Sue Blue
