Three Books
Let's see - what have I been up to recently? Nothing really, so here's some mega quick reviews of three snatches of recent reading...
The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories, 1989, edited by Edward D. Hoch is a decent collection of short stories, marred by one bloody awful crock of a tale, written by an American, about the plucky IRA 'freedom fighters', robbing the rich and feeding the poor, and the crooked British police in Northern Ireland. Seriously, someone needs to shove the entire book right up the author's arse.
The Affinity Bridge, by George Mann. After the disappointment of all but the first Lucifer Box book from Mark Gattis, it's a pleasure to report that this alterate history sf spy story set (roughly) in time of Empire is a cracking read throughout. Sir Maurice Newbury and Veronica Hobbes are believeable and interesting heroes and the world they inhabit, full of giant airships and shuffling plague-ridden zombies, nicely mixes the steampunk and horror genres to great effect, all leavened with a flavouring of the truly fantastic. Good enough that I've already bought the sequel, The Osiris Ritual. You should too.
Hells' Belles, Paul Magrs. This book is - enormously cooly - dedicated to me so I can't in all good conscience do a proper review. I will say however that it's as good as (if not better than) previous entries in the series, and I've scoured ebay for pre-release review editions of those previous entries, so enthralling are the adventures of Brenda and Effie. Seriously, go out and buy the damn thing - even if it didn't have my name in it, it'd still be fabulous and still be one of the best books you'll read this year.
The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories, 1989, edited by Edward D. Hoch is a decent collection of short stories, marred by one bloody awful crock of a tale, written by an American, about the plucky IRA 'freedom fighters', robbing the rich and feeding the poor, and the crooked British police in Northern Ireland. Seriously, someone needs to shove the entire book right up the author's arse.
The Affinity Bridge, by George Mann. After the disappointment of all but the first Lucifer Box book from Mark Gattis, it's a pleasure to report that this alterate history sf spy story set (roughly) in time of Empire is a cracking read throughout. Sir Maurice Newbury and Veronica Hobbes are believeable and interesting heroes and the world they inhabit, full of giant airships and shuffling plague-ridden zombies, nicely mixes the steampunk and horror genres to great effect, all leavened with a flavouring of the truly fantastic. Good enough that I've already bought the sequel, The Osiris Ritual. You should too.
Hells' Belles, Paul Magrs. This book is - enormously cooly - dedicated to me so I can't in all good conscience do a proper review. I will say however that it's as good as (if not better than) previous entries in the series, and I've scoured ebay for pre-release review editions of those previous entries, so enthralling are the adventures of Brenda and Effie. Seriously, go out and buy the damn thing - even if it didn't have my name in it, it'd still be fabulous and still be one of the best books you'll read this year.
Labels: book reviews
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home