Graham

This is hands down one of the best short story collections I have read. There were remarkably few weaker stories in here. This is Grimdark Magazine's first collection and on the back of reading this I have immediately become a subscriber to the magazine. They seem to be engaging with all the top authors within this subgenre of fantasy. The quality of the stories is phenomenally high, and I have been introduced to a whole bunch of new authors to check out in more detail. I also appreciate that they have taken the idea of grimdark to include sci-fi and cyberpunk. Gives a nice variety to the stories

I look forward to reading their other collections and delving into their magazines from now on!

There is one obvious standout classic from this collection in the form of Nightfall. Probably one of Asimov's best known tales and a sci-fi classic. The other stories in this collection are a bit more scattershot in their quality. Marooned off Vesta was his first published story written when he was still a teenager, and that shows with its very stilted style. C-chute and The Martian Way are interesting in their early depictions of EVA's (before such things had in real life been attempted) but are not especially memorable as stories. The Deep is interesting in its concept - and one of the more satisfying stories of the collection. A mixed bag of a collection with one story really way above the others in quality

It pains me a bit to give this such a low score. The cause it is raising money for is definitely worth it, and if you want something in exchange for the donation this is not a bad way to get something. The stories themselves are a mixed bag - there are some gems in there so this is not really a criticism of any individual stories, and always with a short story collection, YMMV depending on your tastes. My main issue is one of how the stories gel together. The themes and styles jump around a lot in here. There is not any real cohesiveness to the whole. The stories are usually on the cleverer side, but the constant twists and ending flips make it exhausting.

This is a collection to dip in and out of. I struggled somewhat - I am a fast and prolific reader but this has taken me several months of small doses in between other reads to get through.

There are good stories in this and the cause is worth the money, but this is not a cohesive collection and needs to be split into more manageable bite-sized chunks

One of the biggest disappointments I've had from a book in a while. The basic premise in the blurb on the back sounded like this would be something right up my alley, but this book was a real struggle to read - a tortured prose that reads like a bad DM during an rpg. The characters in the book were so poorly developed and wafer thin with no real depth at all. The story is full of badly used fantasy tropes. Everything here needed more development - the world building, the character development and the mess of a plot. The worst book I have read in a long time.

The continuation of the Long War series jumps straight in where the action of the first book left off. This is definitely a story in the middle of an arc - it mostly about progressing the characters along their respective journeys. Fortunately, their journeys are all great fun!

The world building in this book series is phenomenal - a really fleshed out and fully realized world with a complex interaction between the various peoples and nations, a full mythology and a real sense of history.

This second book sees the individual characters develop. Whilst the first book was pretty ruthless at killing off key characters this one is a bit more gentle and allows the read to bond with them a bit more. New POVs are introduced so the cast of characters is growing quite sizeable!

The action is pretty continuous. We are in the middle of a war after all. Seemingly major events can sometimes pass really fast, but this only serves to heighten the sense of scope and scale to an impressive level.

An excellent mid series book and I can't wait to see where the Long War goes next.

An intriguing retelling of Norse myths through the eyes of a child narrator in the Second World War. Ragnarok is a classic myth which has picked up many elements of modern Christianity over the years and Byatt has done well to strip away the more egregious ones. The Norse myths are by their very nature strange, beautiful, alluring and brutal. Having this condensed retelling of the key ones is fantastic. The gods of Åsgard are not forgotten and the familiar names are given life in the stories told here.

Where to start? This was an awful mess of a novel, lazily written with horrible plotting and unnatural interactions. My fiance read this recently and complained how bad it was and challenged me to read it as well. Well, she was right.

Firstly, the characters are just so unlikable. The main protagonist is supposed to be some clever scientist but comes across as dimly paranoid, before making giant leaps of conclusions based on practically nothing at all. The doctor figure creates an entirely inappropriate relationship with his patient.

Next we have the writing. Dean Koontz seems to have a love of listing every single thing in incredible detail. This book desperately needed a good editor to cut down the overly flowery description into something more manageable. A lot of these descriptions are just lazy repeats of the same description too. The book reads like a piece of verbal diarrhea

Then there is the plot. The ‘big twist' at the end is one of the laziest writing tropes I have ever scene. If there was any merit in the previous section three quarters of the book it is completely annihilated by the mess at the end.

Is this the worst book I have ever read? No, not by a long shot. But is it worth reading? No, not by a long shot either. This was my first Dean Koontz book and I have no desire to read anything else by him based on this. I kind of want the time I spent reading this back...

Brandon Sanderson has quickly risen to be one of my absolutely favourite authors. With the second book in the Stormlight Archive, he hits it out the park again. The world of Roshar is an intriguing one of storms and archaic social orders based on some seemingly arbitrary physical attributes (light eyed people are the rulers). The world building here is second to none, and the epic scope that was begun with The Way of Kings is amply followed up and even increased in this. Stormlight #1 spent most of its length establishing the backstory and motives for its main protagonists, Dalinar, Kaladin and Shallan. This book final unites them and the results are spectacular. All of these characters have grown over the course of the 2000 odd pages of the first two books (yes, these books are HUGE). The characters are all interesting, likeable and flawed - always an engaging mix.

I cannot praise the brilliance of the magic systems that Brandon Sanderson uses enough, and this is another system that is cleverly constructed. The currency in the world of Roshar are gems which can store energy recharged in the frequent storms. This energy is what drives the magic, but the energy is used up by the act. The religious undertones behind the magic are facinating too, along with the concept of ‘spren', beings of thought/emotion/ideas/natural forces.

This series is rapidly becoming one of my top 5 fantasy series of all time, and I have only read the first two books. Oathbringer, Stormlight #3, is high up on tbr and I cannot wait till book 4 comes out later this year.

I will just focus this review on the three short stories presented in this issue rather than the rest of the content.

1) The Blades Edge - Peter McLean

This story takes us back into the world of the ‘War for the Rose Throne', focusing on a mission two minor thugs from an opposing operation to the Pious Boys are forced to undertake to capture a certain character from Thomas Piety's gang whilst he is away on business and his second is running the show. The story maintains the fantasy mafia style of the main books with the brutal combination of mafia underworld threats and violence. I enjoyed diving back into this world and it reminded me that I still need to read Priest of Lies.

2)Flesh & Coin - Anna Stephens

This is a reprint of story that first appeared in ‘The Art of War' charity collection (well worth picking up as it has some great stories like this one and is for a good cause). A story of ambush and betrayal it makes for a very entertaining read, but it is a story I had already read elsewhere.

3)Scardevil - Jeff Salyards

I have not read any of Jeff's work before, but I have to admit I was impressed by this story. This one was the highlight of the magazine for me, with an intriguing magic system, a wonderfully cynical voice, some great world building and an interesting story. Highly recommended!

This was the first Garth Nix book I have read and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience! Garth Nix has crafted a world that seems both eerily familiar and utterly strange. The angel magic referenced in the title is a clever construct. The idea that calling upon angels lets you do wondrous things at a cost to ones lifespan produces a nicely calibrated magic system. The more powerful the angel, the more it takes from the summoner. I am a fan of well constructed magic systems and this is up there with some of the best.

The meat of any story is the characters. Angel Mage focuses on two sides of the same story, producing an interesting dichotomy. First we have Lilliath - a supremely powerful Angel Mage, able to do more things than anyone else. In many ways she is the enemy, but Garth Nix has built up some interesting shades of grey and you cant help but sympathising with her from time to time, despite her ruthlessness. The other side is represented by 4 fairly different characters, who are kind of brought together by Lilliath. The friendship and camaraderie that they develop provides a strong counterpoint to the ruthlessness of Lilliath.

There are some wonderful twists on classic tropes within this story. There are strong female protagonists in this story. All the key figures in power are women, which is a nice and welcome change from standard depictions in fantasy.

I hope to return to this world at some point. It was well built and although this story stands alone you can feel that there is plenty more stories to be told in this setting

A really clever crime procedural, focusing more on the legal system and trial than on the usual police work. Graham Moore is a screenwriter, and that kind of comes across in the writing style. This novel has a kind of ‘made for a movie adaption' feel to it. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The characters are well developed and the twisty nature of the plot is a joy to follow.

This focus on the legal and judicial setting is clever as it moves the discussion onto some of the major flaws in the justice system. The fact that you can be encouraged to plead guilty to things you didn't do to make it easier to deny the bigger charges is definitely a weird one, but you increasingly here similar stories in real crime. It also takes a close look at the jury system and exposes some of the flaws there.

I picked this up as a break from my usual reading matter (I mostly read fantasy) and devoured the book in pretty much one sitting, finishing the whole thing in the space of a day. If that is not a solid recommendation, I don't know what is!

Short story anthologies are almost always a great way to get a good introduction to a lot of different authors and this one here is an absolute cracker! 40 stories on the theme of war by a who's who of the best fantasy authors out there today. Added to that this is all for a fantastic cause as all money raised is going to MSF.

The short stories themselves are on the whole extremely good - probably one of the best quality collections I have read. They all provide a great bite sized chunk of story (I found them the perfect length to read on my 20 minute bus ride to work). As with any collection there are some variability in quality (and peoples taste may vary) but I found there were very few stories I actively disliked compared to the ones I enjoyed. Generally I found the ones by the authors I knew already to be easier to read, but this often because I am already familiar with their writing style/worlds.

The theme of war can be a bit bleak, but the way you digest the collection can help here - again a short story collection is great for just taking one story at a time.

Buy this for the good charity cause if nothing else, but the stories themselves are excellent too!

My first taste of African sci-fi, this was an intriguing, brilliant and almost uncomfortable read. Rosewater dumps you straight into some future version of the Earth where alien contact has been made, the US has withdrawn into self isolation and the UK has made a mess of its initial interaction with the alien life. The echoes of the current isolationist tendencies of those countries give the story a real poignancy. The story gives very little initial context for what is going on and lets you build your impression over the course of the novel - an impressive exercise in letting the readers imagination do a lot of the work.

The narrator, Kaaro, is Nigerian living in a city called Rosewater, surrounding the dome, an alien thing, also known as Wormwood. These aliens have seeded the world with fungus like things, which have let some people (including Kaaro) become psychic. The central plot of the story is revolving around the relationship between these psychics, the alien being and the government, and the idea of what it is to be human.

My one gripe is with the very confusing timeline. The story jumps backwards and forwards in time a slightly jarring amount of times which can make it difficult to follow. Fortunately each chapter does specify which date the chapter is referring to, but keeping track of the order of things can be a little challenging.

Overall, an impressively deep work, with interesting cultural references and a timely sense of place. Highly recommended

nope. Just nope.

This was just so badly written. The characters are strange caricatures of what human beings would actually behave like. Their strange and unnatural reactions to the situations they are placed removes any sense of drama or tension from the story. Dean Koontz has built a world of overconfident paranoid idiots, who somehow leap to bizarre conclusions with no apparent reason other than gut feelings. It gives the characters a strangely alien quality which just forces me as the reader to step back from the story and realize how stupid everything he is writing is.

The unnecessarily flowery prose really does not help. The first 50 pages could easily have been cut down to 5 without really impacting the story at all. The author desperately needs an editor. This is not helped by the condescending way that this prose is written. He spends two paragraphs explaining what anthropomorphism is - I don't appreciate being treated like an idiot and as a rule of thumb if an author feels like a word needs that amount of explaining they shouldn't really be using it.

Then there is the weird conversations. Nothing here feels quite natural. The surf language is particularly cringe to read.

The story itself is a half baked conspiracy theory, which is not built up in a way that gains any pay off.

I want the time I spent reading this back.

With the dramatic events currently shaping the world with Covid-19, this book provides a reminder of the previous crisis which in many ways wasn't resolved before the current events brought the news focus elsewhere. The focus of this book is on the migrant crisis in Europe, and it paints a darkly satirical take on the whole affair.

The focus here is on how the western worlds shallow focus on celebrity influences can clash with the real stories of suffering that most of these migrants bear. The central premise of a vapid reality show mixing fashion with refugees is exactly the sort of insensitive nonsense you could imagine being dreamed up in the more heartless parts of the press, but this story rapidly develops a heart as it skewers the hypocrisy of Europe with regards to the rights of refugees and who should bear the costs of integrating them into europe.

The first two thirds of the book gently simmers with this satire - the book is extremely quotable with some darkly insightful takes on human nature. I loved this part of the book and it would have been a solid 5 stars if it had kept up that promise. Unfortunately the last 3rd tails of sharply - the arrival of the immigrants into Europe was always going to be a difficult part to spin with the gentle humour of the start. The story ends up diving down some really dark alleys at the end, and this change in tone was extremely jarring.

I loved the first 2/3rds, the last 1/3rd was fine if different and the ending was just too jarring. This is 3.5 star for me, boosted to 4 because of how much I enjoyed that first part.

The start of an epic space opera, this book has left me hungry for more. A sweeping tale of rogue spaceships, altered humans, alien technology and politics. The universe built for Velocity Weapon is an intriguing one, the Primes (descendant from Prime Inventive, a corporation that first discovered faster than light travel) are a haughtily superior bunch who have come into conflict with another group of settlers (The Icarions) in one of the more backwater planetary systems. These Icarions have developed weapons to try and counter the technological advantage that the primes have. Add into this mix the mysteries behind how Prime Inventive came to discover their key technologies and you have the set up for an epic space opera that I am excited to follow further.

Ada Prime is a distant outpost of the Prime empire, and this book focuses on a brother and sister from this system, Sanda and Biran, along with a few other minor characters. Sanda is a Gunnery Sergeant and Biran is a Keeper, one of a mysterious group who guard Prime's secrets. When Sanda goes missing after a disastrous battle with Icarion this kicks Biran into action politicking his way to try and recover the missing and the dead from the battle. Sanda meanwhile is rescued by a strange ship with a powerful AI.

This book is epic in scope, with engaging characters and a vast and intriguing universe set up, of which we have only just brushed the surface in this book. There are a few pacing issues (the book is quite slow in places) but the set up is worth it and the ending definitely leaves you hungry for more!

The second book in Peter McLean's fantasy gangster mafia series picks up strongly where the first book ended. These books are addictively readable. The Pious Men are fairly despicable gangsters and racketeers, but the characters are so engaging that you cannot help but root for them.

The world of the War for the Rose Throne is corrupt, brutal and violent and the gang warfare level of the books makes for an interesting crossover between fantasy and the Godfather. Tomas Piety has to be one of the most likable rogues I have had the pleasure of reading about. He is a violent gangster, but has his strong moral code that he follows precisely. You do good by him and he will do good by you.

Priest of Lies takes Tomas into the higher reaches of society as he is introduced and infiltrates into the the court life, whilst maintaining his gang business on the side.

This is proper grimdark fantasy, so be prepared for lots of violence, a very grey morality and extreme language (there is a character who is only able to cast magic whilst swearing like a champ for example). I find this addictive stuff. It may not be to everyones taste, but to those that enjoy this genre, this is one of the best out there!

The first thing that you will notice about any of the Stormlight books is that these things are huge. This one is no exception - a great weighty tome of a book. Interestingly, they seem to have gone to a thinner paper between Words of Radiance and Oathbringer hardcovers, because although Oathbringer has more pages it has a slimmer spine. The net effect is that this book is denser, which makes it a heavy weight to have in you hand.

This is all of course secondary to the contents of these pages. You would have to have been living under a rock for the last decade or so if you are a fantasy fan and have not heard of the Stormlight Archives. These are books that are whispered of in hallowed tones as one of the best if not the best current epic fantasy series. Sanderson has a wonderful breezy writing style that is just so easy to read. Beyond this is his fantastic imagination, which builds amazing worlds with unique and interesting rules. Roshar, the world of Stormlight is at the pinnacle of these.

Oathbringer picks up pretty much where Words of Radiance left off. The Radiants are back and Dalinar is doing his best to unite the nations of Roshar against the coming Desolation. This is book 3 out of a planned series of 5 and it definitely feels like a middle book. There is a lot of set up towards the finales and moving the various characters around to where they need to be. The plot does not progress a huge amount, but it does have an ‘Empire Strikes Back' type moment that really gives a nice twist to the story.

The world, the characters and the story are all fantastic to return to, and whilst this doesn't quite strike the highs of the first two books in the series this is still epic fantasy at its best. I cannot wait for Rhythms of War to see where the story takes us next!

It has been a while since I last read some YA fiction (and this is pretty solidly into that catagory). This one feels a little generic in its take - the standard tropes of a group of kids saving the city whilst slightly comically evil adults bumble around. It is a fun read, but nothing that can be taken to seriously. Something that I can treat as filler between meatier stories. I am not really the target audience for this, but it was a pleasant enough distraction for a couple of hours.

A fantastic romp of an adventure! The Black Hawks is first and foremost fun. There is nothing hugely original about the plot or the world, but the story is just great fun. It follows a squire like ‘sworn man' trying to protect a prince as they travel across an unstable country with many different factions trying to capture said prince. The band of mercenaries they end up travelling with are a foul mouthed but endearingly real feeling group of outcasts and misfits. I honestly think Lemon might be one of the most entertaining characters I have ever read. She lives up to her name in a brilliantly amusing way. The rest of the Black Hawk company are all well formed and interesting characters in their own right too.

Whilst the writing was incredibly fun, the plot was a bit of a mess in places, which holds me back from awarding the full 5 stars. The start sequence was somewhat hard to follow and some of the character motivations are somewhat opaque. The later twists are all clever though.

Very intrigued to see where this series ends up!

I recently signed up to Illumicrate, a subscription based book club, and this was the first novel I received from them. My first thoughts were the cover looked gorgeous and the concept sounded intriguing - an Inn at the cross-roads between worlds.

This book is very much a YA book, and unfortunately I am not meaning that in an especially positive way. The amount of teen angst in this book is somewhat overwhelming and masking what is essentially an interesting story and world building exercise. Honestly, I would have much rather read the politicking of the various different worlds than the overwrought heartache of the main character, which just got a bit wearing after a while.

It is a shame - there is a good book buried in there. It may have worked better as a novella with some of the more love triangle bits cut out of it. Good reads lacks a granularity to its ratings, so this would probably be a 2.5 based on its potential, but the execution just was not quite there.

Based on true events, this brutal and sad retelling of the struggle for survival of a Jewish mother and her child during the second world war in Poland is both poetic and poignant. The story showcases the power of love and willingness to do whatever it takes to ensure the survival of ones children.

The power of the story is definitely driven by its basis in reality. These are events that actually happened. These are real people and real lives. The mother and the child make sympathetic centerpieces to the story, amidst the brutal and harsh landscape of the war. The people who help them often seem to have ulterior motives and the things to which they submit to survive are heartbreaking.

The poetry of the piece comes through its symbolism. The yellow bird of the title is an imaginary friend of the child, that the mother uses in stories to persuade her to be quiet, to hide and to survive. There is strong theme of music throughout. The violin and the escape of music provides a more hopeful theme that runs parallel to the main story.

This is not easy reading. It is a difficult and painful subject. It is told with a lovely sympathetic style which helps smooth out the jagged edges, the painful brutality of the subject.

This was my 4th Goldsboro book of the month. All of them have so far been really interesting (and different) tales. This one is no exception, and a worthy addition to my shelf.

Apocalyptic dystopian fiction has long been a favourite of mine, and The Fire Sermon fits very much into that mold with some interesting and unique twists. The main conceit of the novel is that after some incident in the past (The Before, in the books parlance) everyone is born with a twin. One of the twins is born perfect, the other with some form of deformity (the alpha and the omega). The perfect Alpha's use this to suppress the Omega's, but due to some feature of the twinning process each of the twins is linked such that if one dies the other dies as well. It is an interesting concept, the idea of an oppression, but one where genocide is not an option.

This oppression based on differences has strong echoes of todays protests about racial inequality and a system fixed against someone lending the books some extra power. The methods the Alpha's have built into controlling their siblings are dark and impressive. The systematic oppression and stacking of the systems against the Omegas gradually take a darker and darker dimension as the novel unfolds.

This was a bleak story, but the messages are powerful, and the parallels to the real world are all to easy to draw. I look forward to seeing where this tale goes...

This was unexpected and hugely powerful. I received this as part of the Goldsboro Books book of the month club, so it was a bit out of my usual reading sphere.

The word Apeirogon refers to a shape with a countably infinite number of sides, a fact that is strongly alluded to throughout this book - it is almost circular but ultimately multifaceted, like the conflict at the heart of the story. The book itself takes the form of a series of 1001 short vignettes, usually only a few paragraphs long if not shorter highlighting aspects of life in Israel and the West Bank, focusing in on two families who have both lost a daughter to the violence there, one Israeli and one Palestinian. The symbology and meaning behind each little snippet is always clever and gives added power to what is being told. The contrasts and little details on the day to day life of both Israelis and Palestinians are both brutal and sympathetic.

This is ultimately a critique of the status quo in Israel at the moment, the ultimate message is that the occupation itself is destroying the very peace it is trying to achieve. The two central stories are based on real stories, of Smadar and Abir, both of whom were teenagers killed whilst innocently going about their daily lives. The grief and anger present in the story is all very real, and the sense of forgiveness powerful.

This is a brutal and beautiful book. A series of contrasts that give a look into the vicious circle that is currently being enacted in the middle east, whilst at the same time giving a hope for a way out.