Rupam Shyamal

What a great way to start the winter ; with a horror novel that is so disturbingly gory that reading it might make you physically recoil (quite literally).
Five children goes to a 3 day camping trip in an isolated island. The first night they encounter a mysterious man on a boat, coming from the sea and things go drastically and horribly wrong after that.
This is an example of old school horror done right. This book, being bleak, terrifying and utterly disturbing gets an easy recommendation from me.

A famous reporter is gruesomely murdered by a zombie! As absurd as it sounds, NYPD homicide department is totally dumbfounded when evidence suggests that's exactly the case and the mystery deepens.
The 9th book in the Pendergast series puts it back on track after a disappointing 8th entry. It's gripping; it's fast paced and its wonderful characters with a plot full of twists and turns will keep you hooked till the last page. An absolute page turner. ❤️

When really hard Sci-Fi concepts get more attention than the actual plot, we get books like Echopraxia. It started out really good. The first half of the book was really interesting to read. But it went kind of downhill after that. Sometimes I find Peter Watt's writing style very frustrating at some places. His writing is very difficult to visualise. It was justified for the first book in the Firefall series - Blindsight, due to the protagonist's mental condition. But echopraxia succumbs to the same trope even though the protagonist is just a normal ”baseline” human. When every sentence is filled with poetic description and technical jargon with no explanation; it becomes really easy to lose focus. No matter how novel the concept is; if the storytelling has suffered severe portrayal issue, it hampers the enjoyment of the actual content.

3/5 stars.

The year is 2131; Project Spaceguard has found that a 50km long asteroid has entered our solar system and hurtling toward the sun. Upon closer inspection scientists found it defies any known properties of asteroids. The unknown object, codenamed RAMA, is not a natural object at all - it's artificial and very old, far older than the oldest object ever made by mankind.

Rendezvous with Rama is one of the most recommended books when it comes to classic science fiction and deservedly so. Its take on the theme of first contact is surprisingly relevant and enthralling even to this day. Just like 2001- a space odyssey, Rendezvous with Rama will surprise you with Arthir C Clarke's grip on science and hardcore sci-fi concepts. You can even spot some inspiration that Chris Nolan had got for his film, Interstellar; for example those tidal waves and cooper station.