SFBook Reviews

I am not sure if readers have noticed, but we have quietly entered a new Golden Era of Fantasy writing. There is a handful or more of established fantasy authors who have the experience and skill to be writing at the top of their game. Fantasy novels that are not just simple retellings of old tropes, but books that hold up as great literature in their own right. <...

To work in a novel, you need to be the right amount of crazy. Too little and you just come across as a little odd and moany, too much and your book has just become a horror novel. In Callisto Lodwick’s The Drowned Siren, Eleanor is a student in Scotland who is introverted and clingy, but not really crazy enough to be anything other than navel-gazi...

A brief admission to start. I've just finished Twelve Months and realised, slightly to my embarrassment, that I never actually got round to writing a review for Battle Ground. So here, six years late, is that review. I will keep this one largely spoiler-free; the events of Battle Ground are by now widely discussed...

A short warning before the review: Peace Talks is the first half of a single story that concludes in Battle Ground, and certain late-book events spill across both volumes. I have kept the major plot resolutions and the ending out, but if you want to come to the book entirely cold, bookmark this and come back when you have read it.

Peace Tal...

A small note before the review: Skin Game is the kind of book that hides a lot of its best work in its second half, and to talk about it usefully I will need to touch on a few of the setup beats from the opening chapters. I have tried to keep specific plot resolutions and the bigger character developments out, but you should consider yourself lightly warned. I...