NB: With Russia's unprovoked murderous assault on Ukraine, I am actively looking at alternative hosts for this journal, preferably those which will retain as much content as possible. I am very uncomfortable with being part of the Russian economic system at present, in however small a way. In the meantime ( Read more... )

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially ( Read more... )

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially ( Read more... )

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially ( Read more... )

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially ( Read more... )

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially ( Read more... )

These are two short charity anthologies of short stories published last year, doing more or less exactly what their titles promise. They caught my eye in particular because of the co-editors - I've enjoyed Tidhar's alternate history treatments of Osama Bin Laden and Adolf Hitler, and Levene has been a friend of mine since 1987 - though as it turns ( Read more... )

This was a book I picked up on the basis that it was likely to be on the BSFA long list (as indeed it is), and also because the bulk of it consists of Roberts' reviews of sf and fantasy books published in 2014, many of which I also read for the Arthur C. Clarke Award (Roberts was also a juror for two of the Kitschies' awards). We agree more often ( Read more... )

I still have a few 2015 books to write up (though finished the first of 2016 this morning).

Moon over Soho is second in the Peter Grant series of novels about an occult policeman in London, of which I very much enjoyed the first a few months ago. I liked this one a lot too; I had hoped for more adventures with the personified London rivers, but I ( Read more... )

Regular readers will know that Brian Aldiss is one of my favourite writers, and the Helliconia trilogy is one of his core works: three novels set centuries apart on Helliconia, a planet whose orbit brings it from freezing winter to hot summer over the centuries, and whose two major races (humans and horned furry Pharos) are under constant ( Read more... )