Dan

A gloriously silly concept (immortal warrior is chased by a similarly immortal vengeance obsessed pig) but the authors lean into it so hard that it becomes a genuine epic, a comics and pop culture inflected Beowulf. Unfortunately the plotting can't quite sustain the epic tone and the last quarter pretty much falls apart in front of your eyes, but it's a fun ride getting there.

I mean, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy this, but all the way through it invited comparison with Tom Holt's The Walled Orchard (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1125846.The_Walled_Orchard?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_14). The subject matter (classical Athenian drama and the fallout from Athens' invasion of Syracuse) and the tone (broadly comic but not afraid to delve into the horrors of war and man's cruelty to man) are nigh on identical, and so, much as I liked it, the ghost of Holt* haunted my reading of this.

Also, to put on my classical pedant's hat for a moment, there is one absolute clunker in here early on, when a character refers to Sophocles' Oedipus Rex - rex of course being a Latin word that no Greek** would have used in the 5th century BCE. A contemporary would be much more likely to have called it Oedipus Tyrannos. Or even just Oedipus, as there are suggestions that the Tyrannos part of the title was a retrospective addition once Sophocles had written Oedipus At Colonus, which happened after the events of this book, but that is a pedantry too far even for me.

*he's not dead, as far as I am aware

**yeah, I know

An extremely powerful novella about ableism in Japan, from the point of view of a woman with a serious physical disability, written by an author with that same disability. It is furious and relentless, brutal and unforgiving, and places the body, with all its flaws and desires, firmly in the centre stage and doesn't take its eyes off it for one second.

A new novel from The Greatest Living Englishman is always something to look forward to, and The Great When does not disappoint. Full of the joy of words and stories, it combines the ordinary and mundane with the very much not, and does so with extraordinarily vivid characters and locations. It's funny, exciting, mysterious, and stuffed full of sensawunda. Next one now, please.

A collection of short stories, previously heard on the radio in slightly different versions. I liked this, but it's less cohesive than I hoped - the idea of linked stories all taking place in the same area over thousands of years offers plenty of opportunity for resonances and echoes throughout, but that doesn't come into play as much as I might have liked. It's also curiously lacking in a sense of place - I didn't come away thinking I knew this area or how the location of one story was related to another. There wasn't one individual story that I disliked, but somehow as a novel it is less than the sum of its parts. There is some great writing here, and a sinister and ominous mood throughout (which counts as praise round my way), but I think it is better served by being parcelled out over a long period if time and interspersed with other books rather than being read in one go.

An interesting short novel that deals with themes of memory, commemoration and time.
It's not quite magical realism but it's not quite mundane either, well worth a read.

Great to see these two tackling an SF story that couldn't be more different from the Expanse books that made their name. It would have been very easy to knock out a retread of the hits, but this has a very different setting and feel. The only thing that carries over is the readability and enjoyment. -I really liked this opening instalment and I'm keen for the rest of the story

Liked this one. It's very charming, and a pretty rare bird as a mix of romance novel, grubby spy thriller and near future dystopia. It's a lot of things all at once, much like the main characters!

This is a philosophical parable masked as an SF dystopia narrated by a former house servant who is also a robot. It's likeable, with some genuinely funny stuff, but it's overlong. There's just not enough content to sustain the length. Tchaikovsky has done some really good work at novella length in the last few years, and I do wonder if this would have been better off fitting into that strand of his work.

Layers on layers here, but at the bottom is Tremblay's darkest book (and if you've read the others you'll know that's quite the achievement). There's an all pervading atmosphere of dread, and it's a bleak warning about the darkness in ourselves. One of the best horror writers currently operating.

Somewhere between a gothic novel and a coming of age tale, this is a pleasingly offbeat family story. It feels more personal and introspective than Ogawa's other books, without being slighter. The period setting is evoked superbly and the whole thing is profoundly atmospheric.

I really liked Infinity's Gate, and this conclusion sticks the landing. There's a fair bit of scientific philosophising, but never at the expense of characters or action, and the whole thing is propulsively exciting. Excellent contemporary SF.

I wish I loved anything like Julia Armfield loves water.

Her latest is a queer take on King Lear (and also a particular recent-ish British movie that it would be massive spoiler to name) across a backdrop of climate change (which is a little annoyingly not really explored - I just kept thinking that if it's raining this much, what food is growing and why hasn't everyone starved to death?). It's powerfully written, and you will feel distinctly soggy while reading. I did find the characters in this one a lot less relatable or even likeable than in Our Wives Under The Sea, which is fine, as not everything needs to be a cosy cuddle fest, but at the same time it doesn't have the unsettling vibe of the earlier novel. It's a good book, but maybe doesn't quite match the expectations I had after the debut. I'll still be around for the next one though.

I thought this was going to be right up my street (whoever wrote the blurb for this new Penguin edition needs a pay rise), but the reality proved to be a little disappointing. There are a few too many longueurs and digressions for a short book, but fundamentally it's just not as weird as I was hoping and expecting. There is a nice vein of pitch black comedy throughout, which helps, but ultimately I wanted something more fantastical.

This book is about two decaying wrecks whose best days are long behind them. One is an American soul singer, the other is a Northern English seaside town. The story of how one gets on in the other is charming and sweet. Bucky Bronco and his English chaperone Dinah are well drawn and engaging characters, beaten down by the tribulations of life, but each with an escape - pain pills for one, soul music for the other. They're very likeable, and you'll be rooting for both of them throughout. The book is very much in Nick Hornby territory, which is perhaps a surprise from the author of The Gallows Pole and Cuddy, but hey versatility in a writer shouldn't be sniffed at. It's not a demanding read, but it's not slight either. It's well written, with a very strong sense of place, and all the characters, even the minor or less likeable ones, feel realistic and believable.

Fans of this book may like to know it's been filmed as Wood Job!, which is one of my favourite Japanese movies. If you liked the book, you'll love the film!

DNF after 250 pages. Would-be philosophical sub-Matrix guff and an unhealthy obsession with sexual violence.

Really enjoyed this multivoiced and imaginative fairytale. The execution is hugely original, the character work is believable, the action scene are gripping, and overall it's one of the best fantasy novels in years

(If you've played Skyrim you're going to recognise a major plot element though...)

Very tropey, and fails to induce any kind of suspension of disbelief, with characters driven by the plot instead of the other way round. This one didn't work for me at all.

Astonishing vision, terrible prose

After a few novels which were enjoyable but not earth shattering, it's great to see Brookmyre experimenting again. This one plays with different facets of the crime genre, and while they may seem initially mismatched, all is under control. It's an intimidating one to review for fear of spoilers, but be assured it's lots of fun.

This one started slowly for me, and I wasn't sold on it at all, especially as the initial viewpoint character is not at all sympathetic. And then suddenly I found myself at 40% and racing through the pages and reassessing my opinion of, well, everybody in the story. It's very cleverly structured, and I think a reread armed with the knowledge of what happens would be very productive. Not necessarily an easy read, but a very good one.

Robert Jackson Bennett is among my favourite fantasy writers, and has been since I took a copy of The Troupe out of the library and flipped for it. He's put out something like eight or nine books now, and they've all been highly readable, and what's more, highly imaginative. The core fantasy ideas here are plant magic and huge leviathans rising out of the seas (which I think we will learning a lot more about in coming books), but the form of the book is more like a crime novel, as it foregrounds a bizarre murder investigation in this world. The world building and characterisation are top notch. Ana Dolabra and Dinias Kol are two highly engaging characters, and I'm really looking forward to seeing more of their cases

This is lush and intense, very reminiscent of a Peter Strickland movie. But I don't like Peter Strickland movies! If you do, then I think you will really get into this.

Merged review:

This is lush and intense, very reminiscent of a Peter Strickland movie. But I don't like Peter Strickland movies! If you do, then I think you will really get into this.

Merged review:

This is lush and intense, very reminiscent of a Peter Strickland movie. But I don't like Peter Strickland movies! If you do, then I think you will really get into this.

Merged review:

This is lush and intense, very reminiscent of a Peter Strickland movie. But I don't like Peter Strickland movies! If you do, then I think you will really get into this.

Aaaand we're back for another adventure with the eccentric employees of The Stranger Times. McDonnell writes with a lot of warmth, and while he clearly takes inspiration from Terry Pratchett (and less expectedly, Mick Herron), these books are very much their own thing. Once again, this is is an entertaining and lively read, with a cast of characters you will be rooting for. Paragraph for paragraph, these are just about the most fun books around at the moment (alongside the humourous crime novels of Caimh McDonell who I'm sure is absolutely nothing to do with this author), and I hope there are many more to come.