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Michèle Forbes' debut novel Ghost Moth was a intriguing work that had its own unique setting and character, dealing with family bonds in Belfast in the post-war years, with a side look at art and entertainment. What made the work even more exceptional was the ability of the author to find some poetic resonance that was able to touch on the more abstract and intangible ideas and sentiments. It's wonderful then to see the author's second novel Edith & Oliver is even more ambitious in its historical period detail and character study of the individuals within a family unit, and the writing even more impressive in how it probes even more deeply into some very dark corners of the mind. What is interesting about the characters of Oliver Fleck and Edith Foster - initially at least - is that they are both in the entertainment industry; Oliver and illusionist, Edith an accompanist on the piano. Both are from Northern Ireland, but the nature of their career means that they are c...

It's probably best to start with a look at the title of Jaroslav Kalfař's debut novel in order to begin to describe what it is and what it isn't. The Spaceman of Bohemia  is science-fiction, but it's also not strictly science-fiction. Oh, it's set in the near-future, there's definitely a spaceman and there is even an alien life-form, so the 'Spaceman' part of the title is certainly SF in how the book explores the technical issues and psychological implications of space travel, but the 'Bohemia' part of the title is even more important. It qualifies and alters where those expectations given in the title might lead you, which inevitably is somewhere more down to earth. In the spring of 2018, Czech astronaut Jakub Procházka sets off on a solo flight on the space shuttle JanHus1. He's on a manned mission to investigate the properties of the dust cloud of a new asteroid called Chopra that has just entered the galaxy. It could pose a threat to huma...

There are some familiar aspects to the covert military operation in Gerald Seymour's latest novel Jericho's War , but that's to be expected from an author who not only knows the established pattern and procedure of such operations, but also demonstrates a remarkable insight into the lives and motivations of the people involved in them. The author's finger on the pulse of world affairs takes a team to a village near Sana'a in the Yemen this time, but aside from the location things really don't change. The potential for things to wrong is one of those constants, with the only variable being the extent to which events slip out of control. Gerald Seymour considers the imponderables. Perhaps the biggest imponderable is the whole nature of the operation itself. A unit of three has been assembled to go into Yemen and eliminate an individual who is deemed to be a serious threat to security. It's strictly old-school, feet on the ground, cloak-and dagger, action man h...

John Fairfax previously worked as a barrister, and reading Summary Justice , the author's first Benson and De Vere novel, you can't half tell. It's a courtroom drama that knows its legal procedure and case history, as well as being well up to date with current techniques and new innovations being made into criminal investigation. As a barrister you would also expect the author to be convincing when it comes to people; understanding what makes them tick, what their motivations and behaviour is likely to be, and how capable they are of committing a crime. Unfortunately, the jury is still out on that one. That might not matter so much if Summary Justice  can begin its series with a thrilling case that introduces an unlikely criminal case team that will take on and win what seems to be impossible cases. It certainly starts out that way at least with its ambiguous characterisation of William Benson. Benson has served 11 years for murder, a murder evidently that he maintains he d...

In Reservoir 13 , like all of Jon McGregor's novels, nothing happens and yet everything happens. Life happens in other words, which is this author's area of interest and that's about as big a subject as you can expect anyone to deal with. Reservoir 13  demonstrates how brilliantly he is able to follow the rhythms of life that are barely discernible to the individual caught up in their own circumstances and unable to grasp any sense of a bigger picture, if one even exists. That's McGregor's gift and once again, he captures that sense of the small, the seemingly trivial and mundane moments of life and weaves them into a bigger picture that can be poignant and deeply moving. Reservoir 13  opens a little deceptively with a big event; the disappearance/abduction of a 13-year-old girl, Rebecca Shaw from a rural community in middle England. After all the press coverage however, interest seems to fizzle out fairly quickly and life slips back back into its usual rhythm. A de...

Laini Taylor writes YA romantic-fantasy. That's what she does and she is very good at it, having a clear style and a distinctive fantasy worldview of her own. On that basis, you can hardly criticise her latest novel Strange the Dreamer  for being another well-written teen romantic-fantasy that is very much within that style, or at least that's the case for the opening setting-the-scene installment in the first part of a new two-part series. On the other hand, there is much that feels formulaic about Strange the Dreamer , the book seeming to go through the motions and meeting expectations without generating any real sense of conflict or danger and without even having any real heart of its own. But it's early days yet. In book one of the new series we are introduced to Lazlo Strange. Lazlo is an orphan (well, obviously since it is a fantasy - mysterious origins and 'special' qualities no doubt to be later revealed), an orphan of the wars in the kingdom of Zosma, broug...

The cover of Kim Stanley Robinson's latest exploration of man, nature and science might be a little deceptive, but only just a little. The image of a future New York with lower Manhattan flooded, presumably in the year 2140, is certainly representative of the focus that the author places on an important city and how it might very likely be affected by climate change in the near future, but this is not just another work of speculative environmental disaster fiction. Kim Stanley Robinson doesn't waste time on the hows and whys of something that seems inevitable to anyone who knows that we've already passed the point of no return as far as environmental change is concerned and just how likely such disastrous repercussions will be. No, Robinson is more interested in how we choose to move forward after the inevitable happens. This is typical of Kim Stanley Robinson. He's not content to just spin an entertaining science-fiction adventure in a futuristic New York, nor does he ...